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tl I V V. 



LITTLE MEMOIRS OF THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

MRS. DELANY 

(Mary Granville) 

A MEMOIR : 1700-1788. 

With Seven Illustrations in Photogravure. 

SECOND EDITION. 



LITTLE MEMOIRS OF THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

IViih Seven Illustrations in Photogravure. 
SECOND EDITION. 



LONDON : GRANT RICHARDS 
NEW YORK : E. P. DUTTON AND CO. 







J7/^3?^M^'igf 



LITTLE MEMOIRS 

OF THE 

NINETEENTH CENTURY 

BY 

GEORGE PASTON 



WITH PORTRAITS IN PHOTOGRAVURE 



LONDON 
GRAN TRIG HARDS 

E. P. DUTTON AND CO. 
NEW YORK 

1902 






iO 1j 



Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable (late) Printers to Her Majesty 



PREFACE 

For these sketches of minor celebrities of the nineteenth 
century^ it has been my aim to choose subjects whose ex- 
periences seem to illustrate the life — more especially the 
literary and artistic life — qf the first half of the century ; 
and roho of late years, at any rate, have not been over- 
whelmed by the attentions of the minor biographer. Having 
some faith in the theory that the verdict of foreigners is 
equivalent to that of contemporary posterity, I have in- 
cluded two aliens in the group. A visitor to our shores, 
whether he be a German princeling like PilcMer-Muskau, or 
a gilded democrat like N. P. Willis, may be expected to 
observe and comment upon many traits of national life and 
manners that would escape the notice of a 7iative chronicler. 
Whereas certain readers of a former volume — ^Little 
Memoirs of the Eighteenth Century '' — seem to have been 
distressed by the fact that the majority qf the characters 
died in the nineteenth century, it is perhaps meet that I 
should apologise for the chronology qf this present volume, 
in xchich all the heroes and heroines, save one, were born 
in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. But I 
woidd venture to submit that a man is not, necessarily, 
the child qf the century in zvhich he is born, or qf that 
in which he dies ; rather is he the child qf the century 
which sees the finest Jloxver qfhis achievement. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON, ..... 3 



LADY MORGAN (Sydney Owenson), .... 95 

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 159 

LADY HESTER STANHOPE, ..... 217 

PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND, . . .279 

WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT, .... 325 



Vll 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON, . . . . Frontispiece 

LADY MORGAN, page 95 '"^ 

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, . . . . ,, 159 '^' 

LADY HESTER STANHOPE ON HORSEBACK, . . „ 219 ^^ 

LADY HESTER STANHOPE IN EASTERN COSTUME, „ 241 '^ 

PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU, . . . . „ 279 '^ 

MA.RY HO WITT, ,. 325 -^ 



IX 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

PART I 

If it be true that the most important ingredient in the 
composition of the self-biographer is a spirit of childlike 
vanity, with a blend of unconscious egoism, few men have 
ever been better equipped than Haydon for the produc- 
tion of a successful autobiography. In naive simplicity 
of temperament he has only been surpassed by Pepys, 
in fulness of self-revelation by Rousseau, and his Memoirs 
are not unworthy of a place in the same category as the 
Diary and the Confessions. From the larger public, the 
work has hardly attracted the attention it deserves ; it is 
too long, too minute, too heavily weighted with technical 
details and statements of financial embarrassments, to be 
widely or permanently popular. But as a human docu- 
ment, and as the portrait of a temperament, its value can 
hardly be overestimated ; while as a tragedy it is none 
the less tragic because it contains elements of the 
grotesque. Haydon set out with the laudable intention 
of writing the exact truth about himself and his career, 
holding that every man who has suffered for a principle, 
and who has been unjustly persecuted and oppressed, 
should write his own history, and set his own case before 
his countrymen. It is a fortunate accident for his readers 
that he should have been gifted with the faculty of 
picturesque expression and an exceptionally keen power 

3 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

of observation. If not a scholar, he was a man of wide 
reading, of deep though desultory thinking, and a good 
critic where the work of others was concerned. He seems 
to have desired to conceal notliing, nor to set down aught 
in malice ; if he fell into mistakes and misrepresentations, 
these were the result of unconscious prejudice, and the 
exaggerative tendency of a brain that, if not actually 
warped, trembled on the border-line of sanity. He hoped 
that his mistakes would be a warning to others, his 
successes a stimulus, and that the faithful record of his 
struggles and aspirations would clear his memory from 
the aspersions that his enemies had cast upon it. 

Haydon was born at Plymouth on January 26, 1786. 
He was the lineal descendant of an ancient Devonshire 
family, the Haydons of Cadhay, who had been ruined by 
a Chancery suit a couple of generations earlier, and had 
consequently taken a step downwards in the social scale. 
His grandfather, who married Mary Baskerville, a descen- 
dant of the famous printer, set up as a bookseller in 
Plymouth, and, dying in 1773, bequeathed his business to 
his son Benjamin, the father of our hero. This Benjamin, 
who married the daughter of a Devonshire clergyman 
named Cobley, was a man of the old-fashioned, John Bull 
type, who loved his Church and king, believed that 
England was the only great country in the world, swore 
that Napoleon won all his battles by bribery, and 
would have knocked down any man who dared to disagree 
with him. The childhood of the future historical painter 
was a picturesque and stirring period, filled with the 
echoes of revolution and the rumours of wars. The 
Sound was crowded with fighting ships preparing for sea, 
or returning battered and blackened, with wounded 
soldiers on board and captured vessels in tow, Plymouth 
4 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

itself was full of French prisoners, who made little 
models of guillotines out of their meat-bones, and sold 
them to the children for the then fashionable amusement 
of ' cutting off Louis xvi/s head."* 

Benjamin was sent to the local grammar-school, whose 
headmaster. Dr. Bidlake, was a man of some culture, 
though not a deep classic. He wrote poetry, encouraged 
his pupils to draw, and took them for country excursions, 
with a view to fostering their love of nature. Mr. 
Haydon, though he was proud of Benjamin's early 
attempts at drawing, had no desire that he should be turned 
into an artist, and becoming alarmed at Dr. Bidlake's 
dilettante methods, he transferred his son to the Plympton 
Grammar-school, where Sir Joshua Reynolds had been 
educated, with strict inj unctions to the headmaster that 
the boy was on no account to have drawing-lessons. On 
leaving school at sixteen, Benjamin, after, a few months 
with a firm of accountants at Exeter, was bound appren- 
tice to his father for seven years, and it was then that his 
troubles began. 

' I hated day-books, ledgers, bill-books, and cash- 
books," he tells us. ' I hated standing behind the counter, 
and insulted the customers ; I hated the town and all the 
people in it.' At last, after a quarrel with a customer 
who tried to drive a bargain, this proud spirit refused to 
enter the shop again. In vain his father pointed out to 
him the folly of letting a good business go to ruin, of 
refusing a comfortable independence — all argument was 
vain. An illness, which resulted in inflammation of the 
eyes, put a stop to the controversy for the time being; 
but on recovery, with his sight permanently injured, the 
boy still refused to work out his articles, but wandered 
about the town in search of casts and books on art. He 

5 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

bought a fine copy of Albinus at his father''s expense, and 
in a fortnight, with his sister to aid, learnt all the 
muscles of the body, their rise and insertion, by heart. 
He stumbled accidentally on Reynold's Discourses, and 
the first that he read placed so much reliance on honest 
industry, and expressed so strong a conviction that all 
men are equal in talent, and that application makes all 
the difference, that the would-be artist, who hitherto had 
been held back by some distrust of his natural powers, 
felt that at last his destiny was irrevocably fixed. He 
announced his intention of adopting an art-career with a 
determination that demolished all argument, and, in spite 
of remonstrances, reproaches, tears, and scoldings, he 
wrung from his father permission to go to London, and 
the promise of support for the next two years. 

On May 14, 1804, at the age of eighteen, young 
Haydon took his place in the mail, and made his first 
flight into the world. Arriving at the lodgings that had 
been taken for him in the Strand in the early morning, 
he had no sooner breakfasted than he set off for Somerset 
House, to see the Royal Academy Exhibition. Looking 
round for historical pictures, he discovered that Opie's 
' Gil Bias "^ was the centre of attraction in one room, and 
Westall's ' Shipwrecked Boy ' in another. 

' I don't fear you,' he said to himself as he strode 
away. His next step was to inquire for a plaster-shop, 
where he bought the Laocoon and other casts, and then, 
having unpacked his Albinus, he was hard at w^ork 
before nine next morning drawing from the round, and 
breathing aspirations for High Art, and defiance to all 
opposition. 'For three months,' he tells us, 'I saw 
nothing but my books, my casts, and my drawings. My 
enthusiasm was immense, my devotion for study that of 
6 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

a martyr. I rose when I woke, at three or four, drew at 
anatomy till eight, in chalks from casts from nine till 
one, and from half-past two till five — then walked, dined, 
and to anatomy again from seven till ten or eleven. I 
was resolute to be a great painter, to honour my country, 
and to rescue the Art from that stigma of incapacity that 
was impressed upon it."' 

After some months of solitary study, Haydon be- 
thought him of a letter of introduction that had been 
given him to Prince Hoare, who was something of a 
critic, having himself failed as an artist. Hoare good- 
naturedly encouraged the youth in his ambitions, and 
gave him introductions to Noi'thcote, Opie, and 
Fuseli. 

To Northcote, who was a Plymouth man, Haydon went 
first, and he gives a curious account of his interview with 
his distinguished fellow-countryman, who also had once 
cherished aspirations after high art. Northcote, a little 
wizened old man, with a broad Devonshire accent, 
exclaimed on hearing that his young visitor intended 
to be a historical painter : ' Heestorical painter ! why, 
yell starve with a bundle of straw under yeer head.' As 
for anatomy, he declared that it was no use. ' Sir Joshua 
didn't know it ; why should you want to know what he 
didn't ? Michael Angelo ! What 's he to do here ? 
You must paint portraits here.' ' I won't,' said young 
Haydon, clenching his teeth, and he marched off to Opie. 
He found a coarse-looking, intellectual man who, after 
reading the introductory letter, said quietly, ' You are 
studying anatomy — master it — were I your age, I would 
do the same.' The last visit was to Fuseli, who had a 
great reputation for the terrible, both as artist and as 
man. The gallery into which the visitor was ushered 

7 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

was so full of devils, witches, ghosts, blood and thunder, 
that it was a palpable relief when nothing more alarming 
appeared than a little old and lion-faced man, attired in 
a flannel dressing-gown, with the bottom of Mrs, Fuseli's 
work-basket on his head ! Fuseli, who had just been 
appointed Keeper of Academy, received the young man 
kindly, praised his drawings, and expressed a hope that 
he would see him at the Academy School. 

After the Christmas vacation of 1805, Hay don began 
to attend the Academy classes, where he struck up a close 
friendship with John Jackson, afterwards a popular 
portrait-painter and Royal Academician, but then a 
student like himself. Jackson was the son of a village 
tailor in Yorkshire, and the 'protege of Lord Mulgrave 
and Sir George Beaumont. The two friends told each 
other their plans for the future, drew together in the 
evenings, and made their first life-studies from a friendly 
coalheaver whom they persuaded to sit to them. After a 
few months of hard work, Haydon was summoned home 
to take leave of his father, who was believed to be dying. 
The invalid recovered, and then followed another period 
of torture for the young student — aunts, uncles, and 
cousins all trying to drive the stray sheep back into the 
commercial fold. Exhausted by the struggle, Haydon at 
last consented to relinquish his career, and enter the 
business. Great was his delight and surprise when his 
father refused to accept the sacrifice — which was made in 
anything but a cheerful spirit— and promised to contribute 
to his support until he was able to provide for himself. 

In the midst of all these domestic convulsions came a 

letter from Jackson, containing the announcement that 

there was 'a raw, tall, pale, queer Scotchman just come 

up, an odd fellow, but with something in him. He is 

8 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

called Wilkie,' ' Hang the fellow ! "* said Haydon to him- 
self. 'I hope with his "something'" he is not going to 
be a historical painter.' On his return to town, our hero 
made the acquaintance of the queer young Scotchman, 
and was soon admitted to his friendship and intimacy. 
Wilkie''s ' Village Politicians "■ was the sensation of the 
Exhibition of 1806, and brought him two important 
commissions — one from Lord Mulgrave for the ' Blind 
Fiddler,' and the other from Sir George Beaumont for the 
' Rent-Day.** It was now considered that Wilkie's fortune 
Avas made, his fame secure, and if his two chief friends 
— Haydon and Jackson — could not help regarding him 
with some natural feelings of envy, it is evident that his 
early success encouraged them, and stimulated them to 
increased effort. 

Haydon had been learning fresh secrets in his art, 
partly from an anatomical 'subject' that he had obtained 
from a surgeon, and partly from his introduction, through 
the good offices of Jackson, to the works of Titian at 
Stafford House, and in other private collections, there 
being as yet no National Gallery where the student could 
study the old masters at his pleasure. Haydon was now 
panting to begin his first picture, his natural self-con- 
fidence having been strengthened by a letter from Wilkie, 
who reported that Lord Mulgrave, with whom he was 
staying, was much interested in what he had heard of 
Haydon's ambitions. Lord Mulgrave had suggested a 
heroic subject — the Death of Dentatus — which he would 
like to see painted, and he wished to know if this com- 
mended itself to Haydon's ideas. This first commission 
for a great historical picture — for so he understood the 
suggestion — was a triumph for the young artist, who 
felt himself gloriously rewarded for two years of labour 

9 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

and opposition. He had, however, already decided on the 
subject of his first attempt — Joseph and Mary resting 
on the road to Egypt. On October 1, 1806, after setting 
his palette, and taking his brush in hand, he knelt down, 
in accordance with his invariable custom throughout his 
career, and prayed fervently that God would bless his 
work, grant him energy to create a new era in art, and 
rouse the people to a just estimate of the moral value of 
historical painting. 

Then followed a happy time. The difficulties of a first 
attempt were increased by his lack of systematic training, 
but Hay don believed, with Sir Joshua, that application 
made the artist, and he certainly spared no pains to 
achieve success. He painted and repainted his heads a 
dozen times, and used to mix tints on a piece of paper, 
and carry them down to Stafford House once a week in 
order to compare them with the colouring of the Titians. 
While this work was in progress. Sir George and Lady 
Beaumont called to see the picture, which they declared 
was very poetical, and ' quite large enough for anything' 
(the canvas was six feet by four), and invited the artist 
to dinner. This first dinner-party, in what he regarded 
as ' high life,'' was an alarming ordeal for the country 
youth, who made prodigious preparations, drove to the 
house in a state of abject terror, and in five minutes was 
sitting on an ottoman, talking to Lady Beaumont, and 
more at ease than he had ever been in his life. In truth, 
bashfulness was never one of Haydon's foibles. 

The Joseph and Mary took six months to paint, and 
was exhibited in 1807. It was considered a remarkable 
work for a young student, and was bought the following 
year by Mr. Hope of Deepdene. During the season, 
Haydon was introduced to Lord Mulgrave, and with his 
10 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

friends Wilkie and Jackson frequently dined at the 
Admiralty,^ where they met ministers, generals, great 
ladies and men of genius, and rose daily in hope and 
promise. Haydon now began the picture of the ' Death 
of Siccius Dentatus "* that his patron had suggested, but 
he found the difficulties so overwhelming that, by Wilkie's 
advice, he decided to go down to Plymouth for a few 
months, and practise portrait-painting. At fifteen guineas 
a head, he got plenty of employment among his friends 
and relations, though he owns that his portraits were 
execrable ; but as soon as he had obtained some facility 
in painting heads, he was anxious to return to town to 
finish his large picture. Mrs. Haydon was now in declin- 
ing health, and desiring to consult a famous surgeon in 
London, she decided to travel thither with her son and 
daughter. Unfortunately her disease, angina pectoris, 
was aggravated by the agitation of the journey, and on 
the road, at Salt Hill, she was seized with an attack that 
proved fatal. Haydon was obliged to return to Devon- 
shire with his sister, but as soon as the funeral was over 
he set off' again for town, where his prospects seemed to 
justify his exchanging his garret in the Strand for a first 
floor in Great Marlborough Street. 

He found the practice gained in portrait-painting a 
substantial advantage, but he still felt himself incapable 
of composing a heroic figure for Dentatus. ' If I copied 
nature my work was mean,"* he complains ; ' and if I left 
her it was mannered. How was I to build a heroic form 
like life, yet above life.'''' He was puzzled to find, in 
painting from the living model, that the markings of the 
skin varied with the action of the limbs, variations that 

1 Lord Mulgrave had recently been appointed First Lord of the 
Admiralty. 

11 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

did not appear in the few specimens of the antique that 
had come under his notice. Was nature wrong, he 
asked himself, or the antique ? During this period of 
indecision and confusion came a proposal from Wilkie 
that they should go together to inspect the Elgin Marbles 
then newly arrived in England, and deposited at Lord 
Elgin's house in Park Lane. Haydon carelessly agreed, 
knowing nothing of the wonders he was to see, and the 
two friends proceeded to Park Lane, where they were 
ushered through a yard to a dirty shed, in which lay the 
world-famous Marbles. 

' The first thing I fixed my eyes on,*" to quote Haydon's 
own words, ' was the wrist of a figure in one of the female 
groups, in which were visible the radius and ulna. I was 
astonished, for I had never seen them hinted at in any 
wrist in the antique. I darted my eye to the elbow, and 
saw the outer condyle visibly affecting tlie shape, as in 
nature. That combination of nature and repose which 
I had felt was so much wanting for high art was here 
displayed to midday conviction. My heart beat. If I 
had seen nothing else, I had beheld sufficient to help me 
to nature for the rest of my life. But when I turned to 
the Theseus, and saw that every form was altered by 
action or repose — when I saw that the two sides of his 
back varied as he rested on his elbow ; and again, when 
in the figure of the fighting metope, I saw the muscle 
shown under one armpit in that instantaneous action of 
darting out, and left out in the other armpits ; when I 
saw, in short, the most heroic style of art, combined with 
all the essential detail of everyday life, the thing was 
done at once and for ever. . . . Here were the principles 
which the great Greeks in their finest time established, 
and here was I, the most prominent historical student, 
12 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

perfectly qualified to appreciate all this by my own 
determined mode of study/ 

On returning to his painting-room, Haydon, feeling 
utterly disgusted with his attempt at the heroic in the 
form and action of Dentatus, obliterated what he calls 
' the abominable mass,"* and breathed as if relieved of a 
nuisance. Through Lord Mulgrave he obtained an order 
to draw from the Marbles, and devoted the next three 
months to mastering their secrets, and bringing his hand 
and mind into subjection to the principles that they 
displayed. 'I rose with the sun,"* he writes, with the 
glow of his first enthusiasm still upon him, ' and opened 
my eyes to the light only to be conscious of my high 
pursuit. I sprang from my bed, dressed like one possessed, 
and passed the day, noon, and the night, in the same 
dream of abstracted enthusiasm ; secluded from the world, 
regardless of its feelings, impregnable to disease, insensible 
to contempt.' He painted his heads, figures, and 
draperies over and over again, feeling that to obliterate 
was the only way to improve. His studio soon filled with 
fashionable folk, who came to see the 'extraordinary picture 
painted by a young man who had never had the advantages 
of foreign travel.** Haydon believed, with the simplicity 
of a child, in all these flattering prophecies of glory and 
fame, and imagined that the Academy would welcome 
with open arms so promising a student, one, moreover, 
who had been trained in its own school. He redoubled 
his efforts, and in March 1809, 'Dentatus' was finished. 

' The production of this picture,' he naively explains, 
' must and will be considered as an epoch in English art. 
The drawing in it was correct and elevated, and the 
perfect forms and system of the antique were carried into 
painting, united with the fleshy look of everyday life. 

13 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

The colour, light and shadow, the composition and the 
telling of the story were complete.'' His contemporaries 
did not form quite so flattering an estimate of the work. 
It was badly hung, a fate to which many an artist of 
three-and-twenty has had to submit, before and since ; 
but Hay don writes as if no such injustice had been com- 
mitted since the world began, and was persuaded that 
the whole body of Academicians was leagued in spite and 
jealousy against him. Lord Mulgrave gave him sixty 
guineas in addition to the hundred he had first promised, 
which seems a fair price for the second work of an obscure 
artist, but poor Haydon fancied that his professional 
prospects had suffered from the treatment of the Academy, 
that people of fashion (on whose attentions he set great 
store) were neglecting him, and that he was a marked 
man. A sea-trip to Plymouth with Wilkie gave his 
thoughts a new and more healthy turn. Together, the 
friends visited Sir Joshua's birthplace, and roamed over 
the moors and combes of Devonshire. Before returning 
to town, they spent a delightful fortnight with Sir George 
Beaumont at Coleorton, where, says Haydon, ' we dined 
with the Claude and Rembrandt before us, and break- 
fasted with the Rubens landscape, and did nothing, 
morning, noon, and night, but think of painting, talk of 
painting, and wake to paint again.' 

During this visit. Sir George gave Haydon a commis- 
sion for a picture on a subject from Macbeth. After it 
was begun, he objected to the size, but our artist, who, 
throughout his life, detested painting cabinet pictures, 
refused to attempt anything on a smaller scale. He per- 
suaded Sir George to withhold his decision until the 
picture was finished, and promised that if he still objected 
to the size, he would paint him another on any scale he 
14 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

pleased. While engaged on ' Macbeth,"* he competed 
with ' Dentatus "* for a hundred guinea prize offered by 
the Directors of the British Gallery for the best historical 
picture. ' Dentatus ' won the prize, but this piece of 
good fortune was counterbalanced by a letter from Mr. 
Haydon, senior, containing the announcement that he 
could no longer afford to maintain his son. This was a 
heavy blow, but after turning over pros and cons in his own 
mind, Haydon came to the conclusion that since he had 
won the hundred guinea prize, he had a good chance of 
winning a three hundred guinea prize, which the Directors 
now offered, with his ' Macbeth,' and consequently that 
he had no occasion to dread starvation. ' Thus reason- 
ing,"* he says, ' I borrowed, and praying God to bless my 
emotions, went on more vigorously than ever. And here 
began debt and obligation, out of tvhkli I have never been, 
and shall never be, extricated, as long as I live.'' 

This prophecy proved only too true. But Haydon, 
though he afterwards bitterly regretted his folly in 
exchanging independence for debt, and his pride in re- 
fusing to paint pot-boilers in the intervals of his great 
works, firmly believed that he, with his high aims and 
fervent desire to serve the cause of art, was justified in 
continuing his ambitious course, and depending for 
maintenance on the contributions of his friends. Nothinjr 
could exceed the approbation of his own conduct, or 
shake his faith in his own powers. ' I was a virtuous 
and diligent youth,"* he assures us ; ' I never touched wine, 
dined at reasonable chop-houses, lived principally in my 
study, and cleaned my own brushes, like the humblest 
student.' He goes to see Sebastian del Piombo's 
' Lazarus"* in the Angerstein collection, and, after writing 
a careful criticism of the work, concludes : 'It is a grand 

15 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

picture ; a great acquisition to the country, and an 
honour to Mr. Angerstein's taste and spirit in buying it ; 
yet if God cut not my life permanently short, I hope I 
shall leave one behind me that will do more honour to 
my country than this has done to Rome. In short, if I 
live, I will — I feel I shall. (God pardon me if this is 
presumption. June 21, 1810.) ' 

At this time Haydon devoted a good deal of his leisure 
to reading classic authors. Homer, ^Eschylus, and Virgil, 
in order to tune his mind to high thoughts. Nearly every 
day he spent a few hours in drawing from the Elgin 
Marbles, and he piously thanks God that he was in exist- 
ence on their arrival. He spared no pains to ensure 
that his ' Macbeth ' should be perfect in poetry, expres- 
sion, form and colour, making casts and studies without 
end. His friends related, as a wonderful specimen of his 
conscientiousness, that, after having completed the figure 
of Macbeth, he took it out in order to raise it higher 
in the picture, believing that this would improve the 
effect. ' The wonder in ancient Athens would have been 
if I had suffered him to remain," he observes. ' Such is 
the state of art in this country ! ' 

In 1811 Haydon entered into his first journalistic con- 
troversy, an unfortunate departure, as it turned out, since 
it gave him a taste for airing his ideas in print. Leigh 
Hunt, to whom he had been introduced a year or two 
before, had attacked one of his theories, relative to 
a standard figure, in the Examiner. Haydon replied, 
was replied to himself, and thoroughly enjoyed the 
controversy which, he says, consolidated his powers of 
verbal expression. Leigh Hunt he describes as a fine 
specimen of a London editor, with his bushy hair, black 
eyes, pale face, and ' nose of taste."* He was assuming 
16 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

yet moderate, sarcastic yet genial, with a smattering of 
everything and mastery of nothing ; affecting the dictator, 
the poet, the politician, the critic, and the sceptic, 
whichever would, at the moment, give him the air, to 
inferior minds, of a very superior man/ Although 
Haydon disliked Hunfs ' Cockney peculiarities,' and dis- 
approved of his republican principles, yet the fearless 
honesty of his opinions, the unhesitating sacrifice of his 
own interests, the unselfish perseverance of his attacks 
upon all abuses, whether royal or religious, noble or 
democratic, made a deep impression on the young artisfs 
mind. 

Towards the end of 1811 the new picture, which 
represents Macbeth stepping between the sleeping 
grooms to murder the king, was finished, and sent to the 
British Gallery. It was well hung, and was praised by 
the critics, but Sir George declined to take it, though he 
offered to pay Haydon a hundred pounds for his 
trouble, or to give him a commission for a picture on 
a smaller scale. Haydon petulantly refused both offers, 
and thus after three years' work, and incurring debts to 
the amount of six hundred pounds, he found himself 
penniless, with his picture returned on his hands. This 
disappointment was only the natural result of his own 
impracticable temperament, but to Haydon 's exaggerative 
sense the whole world seemed joined in a conspiracy 
against him. 'Exasperated by the neglect of my 
family,' he writes, ' tormented by the consciousness of 
debt, cut to the heart by the cruelty of Sir George, 
and enraged at the insults of the Academy, I became 
furious.' His fury, unfortunately, found vent in an 
attack upon the Academy and its methods, through the 
medium of the Examiner, which was the recognised 
B 17 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

vehicle of all attacks upon authority. The onslaught 
seems to have been justified, though whether it was 
judicious is another question. The ideals of English 
artists during the early years of the nineteenth century 
had sunk very low, and the standard of public taste was 
several degrees lower. Portrait-painting was the only 
lucrative branch of art, and the Academy was almost 
entirely in the hands of the portrait-painters, who gave 
little encouragement to works of imagination. The 
burden of the patron, which had been removed from 
literature, still rested upon painting, and the Acade- 
micians found it more to their interest to foster the 
ignorance than to educate the taste of the patron. 

Over the signature of 'An English Student,' Haydon 
not only exposed the inefficiency of the Academy, but 
advocated numerous reforms, chief among them being 
an improved method of election, the establishment of 
schools of design, a reduction in the power of the Council, 
and an annual grant of public money for purposes of art. 
In these days, when the Academicians are no longer 
regarded as a sacred body, it is hard to realise the 
commotion that these letters made in art circles, whether 
professional or amateur. The identity of the ' English 
Student ' was soon discovered, and ' from that moment,"' 
writes Haydon, ' the destiny of my life was changed. My 
picture was caricatured, my name detested, my peace 
harassed. I was looked at like a monster, abused like a 
plague, and avoided like a maniac' There is probably 
some characteristic exaggeration in this statement, but 
considering the power wielded at this time by the 
Academy and its supporters, Haydon would undoubtedly 
have done better, from a worldly point of view, to keep 
clear of these controversies. The prudent and sensible 
18 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

Wilkie was much distressed at his friend's ebulHtion of 
temper, and earnestly advised him to follow up the 
reputation his brush had gained for him, and leave the 
pen alone. ' In moments of depression,' wrote Haydon, 
many years later, ' I often wished I had followed AVilkie's 
advice, but then I should never have acquired that grand 
and isolated reputation, solitary and unsupported, whicli, 
while it encumbers the individual, inspires him with 
vigour proportioned to the load."" 

On April 3, 1812, Haydon records in his journal: 
' My canvas came home for Solomon, twelve feet ten 
inches by ten feet ten inches — a grand size. God in 
heaven, grant me strength of body and vigour of mind 
to cover it with excellence. Amen — on my knees.' 
His design was to paint a series of great ideal works, 
that should stand comparison with the productions 
of the old masters, and he had chosen the somewhat 
stereotyped subject of the Judgment of Solomon, because 
Raphael and Rubens had both tried it, and he intended 
to tell the story better ! He was now, at the begin- 
ning of this ambitious project, entirely without means. 
His father had died, and left him nothing, and his 
' Macbeth ' had not won the ^£^300 premium at the 
British Gallery. His aristocratic friends had tem- 
porarily deserted him, but the Hunts assisted him with 
the ready liberality of the impecunious. John lent 
him small sums of money, Avhile Leigh offered him a 
plate at his table till Solomon was finished, and initi- 
ated him into the mysteries of drawing and discounting 
bills. 

Haydon already owed his landlord two hundred pounds, 
but that seemed to him no reason for moving into 
cheaper rooms. He called the man up, and represented 

19 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

to him that he was about to paint a great masterpiece, 
which would take him two years, during which period he 
would earn nothing, aud be unable to pay any rent. The 
landlord, surely a unique specimen of his order, de- 
liberated rather ruefully over the prospect set before 
him, rubbed his chin, and muttered : ' I should not like 
ye to go — it 's hard for both of us ; but what I say is, 
you always paid me when you could, and why should you 
not again when you are able ? . . . Well, sir, here 's my 
hand ; I '11 give you two yeai-s more, and if this does not 
sell — why then, sir, we'll consider what is to be 
done."* 

Thus a roof ^was provided, but there was still dinner 
to be thought of, since, if a man works, he must also eat. 
' I went to the house [John o' Groat's] where I had always 
dined,' writes Hay don, ' intending to dine without paying 
for that dav. I thouglit the servants did not offer me 
the same attention. I thought I perceived the company 
examine me — I thought the meat was worse. My heart 
sank, as I said falteringly, " I will pay you to-morrow." 
The girl smiled, and seemed interested. As I was 
escaping with a sort of lurking horror, she said, " Mr. 
Havdon, my master wishes to see you." "My God," 
thought I, " it is to tell me he can't trust ! " In I 
walked like a culprit. " Sir, I beg your pardon, but I 
see bv the papers you have been ill-used ; I hope you 
won't be angry — I mean no offence; but I just wish to 
say, as you have dined here many years and always paid, 
if it Avould be a convenience during your present work 
to dine here till it is done — so that you may not be 
obliged to spend your money here when you may want 
it — I was going to say that you need be under no appre- 
hension — hem ! for a dinner."' This handsome offer was 
20 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

condescendingly accepted, and the good man seemed quite 
relieved. 

While Solomon was slowly progressing at the expense 
of the landlord and the eating-house keeper, Haydon 
spent his leisure in literary rather than artistic circles. 
At Leigh Hunt's he met, and became intimate with 
Charles Lamb, Keats, Hazlitt, and John Scott. In 
January 1813 he writes : ' Spent the evening with Leigh 
Hunt at West End. His society is always delightful. 
I do not know a purer, more virtuous partner, or a more 
witty and enlivening man. We talked of his approaching 
imprisonment. He said it would be a great pleasure if he 
were certain to be sent to Newgate, because he should be 
in the midst of his friends.' Hazlitt won our hero's liking 
by praising his ' Macbeth.' ' Thence began a friend- 
ship,' Haydon tells us, ' for that interesting man, that 
singular mixture of friend and fiend, radical and critic, 
metaphysician, poet, and painter, on whose word no one 
could rely, on whose heart no one could calculate, and 
some of whose deductions he himself would try to explain 
in vain. . . . Mortified at his own failure [in painting] 
he resolved that as he had not succeeded, no one else 
should, and he spent the whole of his after-life in 
damping the ardour, chilling the hopes, and dinmiing 
the prospects of patrons and painters, so that after I 
once admitted him, I had nothing but forebodings of 
failure to bear up against, croakings about the climate, 
and sneers at the taste of the public' 

By the beginning of 1814 Solomon was approaching 
completion, but the artist had been reduced to living for 
a fortnight on potatoes. He had now been nearly four 
years without a conuiiission, and three without any help 
from home, so that it is not surprising to learn that he 

21 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

felt completely broken down in body and mind, or that 
his debts amounted to .£'1100. A frame was procured 
on credit, and, failing any more suitable place of exhibi- 
tion, the picture was sent to the Water-colour Society. 
At the private view, the Princess of Wales and other 
eminent critics pronounced against the Solomon, but as 
soon as the public were admitted, the tune changed, and 
John Bull vowed it was the finest work of art ever 
produced in England. If posterity has not indorsed 
this judgment, the Solomon is at least regarded, by 
competent critics, as Haydon's most successful work. 
' Before the doors had been open half an hour,"* writes 
Havdon, 'a gentleman opened his pocket-book, and 
showed me a i^500 note. " AVill you take it.?" My 
heart beat — my agonies of want pressed, but it was too 
little. I trembled out, " I cannot." The gentleman 
invited me to dine, and when we were sitting over our 
wine, agreed to give me my price. His lady said, " But, 
my dear, where am I to put my piano ? " and the bargain 
was at an end ! ' On the third day Sir George Beaumont 
and Mr. Holwell Carr came to the Exhibition, having 
been deputed to buy the picture for the British Gallery. 
While they were discussing its merits, one of the officials 
went over, and put ' sold ' on the frame, whereupon the 
artist says he thought he should have fainted. The 
work had been bought at the price asked, i^TOO, by two 
Plymouth bankers, Sir William Elford (the friend and 
correspondent of Miss Mitford) and Mr. Tinge- 
combe. 

Poor Haydon now thought that his fortune was secure. 
He paid away X^500 to landlord and tradesmen in the 
first week, and though this did not settle half his debts, 
it restored his credit. The balance was spent in a trip 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

to Paris with Wilkie, Paris being then (May 1814) the 
most interesting place on earth. All the nations of 
Europe were gathered together there, and the Louvre 
was in its glory. So absorbed and fascinated was 
Haydon by the actual life of the city, that he finds 
little to say about the works of art there collected. 
Yet his first visit was to the Louvre, and he describes 
with what impetuosity he bounded up the steps, three 
at a time, and how he scolded Wilkie for trotting up 
with his usual deliberation. 'I might just as well have 
scolded the column,' he observes. ' I soon left him at 
some Jan Steen, while I never stopped until I stood 
before the " Transfiguration." My first feeling was dis- 
appointment. It looked small, harsh and hard. This, 
of course, is always the way when you have fed your 
imagination for years on a work you know only by 
prints. Even the " Pietro Martyre " was smaller than I 
thought to find it; yet after the difference between 
reality and anticipation had worn away, these great 
works amply repaid the study of them, and grew up to 
the fancy, or rather the fancy grew up to them. . . . 
It will hardly be believed by artists that we often forgot 
the great works in the Louvre in the scenes around us, 
and found Russians and Bashkirs from Tartary more 
attractive than the "Transfiguration"; but so it was, 
and I do not think we were very wrong either. Why 
stay poring over pictures when we were on the most 
remarkable scene in the history of the earth.' 

On his return to London, Haydon was gratified by 
the news that his friend and fellow-townsman, George 
Eastlake, had proposed and carried a motion that he 
should be presented with the freedom of his native city, 
as a testimony of respect for his extraordinary merit 

23 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

as a historical painter. Furthermore, the Directors of 
the British Gallery sent him a hundred guineas as a 
token of their admiration for his latest work. But no 
commission followed, either from a private patron or 
public body. However, the artist, nothing daunted, 
ordered a larger canvas, and set vigorously to work on 
a representation of ' Christ's Entry into Jerusalem,*" a 
picture which occupied him, with intervals of illness and 
idleness, for nearly six years. 

The year 1815 was too full of stir and excitement for 
a man like Haydon, who was always keenly interested in 
public affairs, to devote himself to steady work. The 
news of Waterloo almost turned his brain. On June 23 
he notes : ' I read the Gazette [with the account of 
Waterloo] the last thing before going to bed. I dreamt 
of it, and was fighting all night ; I got up in a steam of 
feeling, and read the Gazette again, ordered a Courier for 
a month, and read all the papers till I was faint. . . . 
' Have not the efforts of the nation,' I asked myself, 
' been gigantic ? ' To such glories she only wants to add 
the glories of my noble art to make her the grandest 
nation in the world, and these she shall have if God 
spare my life. . . . 

* June 25. — Dined with Hunt. I give myself credit for 
not worrying him to death at this news. He was quiet 
for some time, but knowing it must come, and putting 
on an air of indifference, he said, " Terrible battle this, 
Haydon." " A glorious one. Hunt." " Oh yes, certainly," 
and to it we went. Yet Hunt took a just and liberal 
view of the situation. As for Hazlitt, it is not to be 
believed how the destruction of Napoleon affected him; 
he seemed prostrated in mind and body ; he walked 
about unwashed, unshaved, hardly sober by day, and 
24 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

always intoxicated by night, literally, without exaggera- 
tion, for weeks, until at length, wakening as it were from 
his stupor, he at once left off all stimulating liquors, and 
never touched them after/ 

It is in this year that we find the first mention in the 
Journal of Wordsworth, who, throughout his life, was 
one of Haydon''s most faithful friends and appreciative 
admirers. On April 13, the artist records : ' I had a cast 
made yesterday of Wordsworth's face. He bore it like 
a philosopher, . . . We afterwards called on Hunt, and 
as Hunt had previously attacked him, and now has 
reformed his opinions, the meeting was interesting. 
Hunt paid him the highest compliments, and told him 
that as he grew wiser and got older, he found his respect 
for his powers, and enthusiasm for his genius, increase, 
... I afterwards sauntered with him to Hampstead, 
with great delight. Never did any man so beguile the 
time as Wordsworth. His purity of heart, his kindness, 
his soundness of principle, his information, his know- 
ledge, and the intense and eager feelings with which he 
pours forth all he knows, affect, interest, and enchant 
one. I do not know any one I would be so inclined to 
worship as a purified being,"* 

The new picture was not far advanced before the 
painter was once again at the end of his resources, 
though not of his courage. Fifty guineas were advanced 
to him by Sir George Beaumont, who had now com- 
missioned a picture at two hundred guineas, and Mr. 
(after Sir George) Phillips, of Manchester, gave him a 
commission of i?500 for a sacred work, paying one 
hundred guineas down. But these advances melted 
rapidly away in the expenses attendant on the painting 
of so ambitious a work as the ' Entry into Jerusalem." 

25 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

Towards the close of the year Haydon''s health began to 
suffer from his excessive application, his sight weakened, 
and he was often unable to paint for months at a time. 
Under these afflictions, he was consoled by receiving 
permission to take casts of the Elgin Marbles, the 
authenticity of which treasures had recently been attacked 
by the art-critic, Knight Payne, who declared that they 
were not Greek at all, but Roman, of the time of 
Hadrian. Such was the effect of Payne Knight's opinion 
that the Marbles went down in the public estimation, 
the Government hesitated to buy them for the nation, 
and they were left neglected in a damp shed. Haydon 
was furious at this insult to the objects of his idolatry, 
whose merits he had been preaching in season and out 
of season since the day that he first set eyes upon the 
Theseus and the Ilissus. At this critical moment he 
found himself supported by a new and powerful champion 
in the person of Canova, who had just arrived in Eng- 
land. Canova at once admitted that the style of the 
Marbles was superior to that of all other known marbles, 
and declared that they were well worth coming from 
Rome to see. ' Canova's visit was a victory for me,' 
writes Haydon, who had received the sculptor at his 
studio, and introduced him to some of the artistic lions 
of London. ' What became now of all the sneers at my 
senseless insanity about the Marbles ? I, unknown, with 
no station or rank, might have talked myself dumb; but 
for Canova, the great artist of Europe, to repeat word 
for word what I had been saying for seven years ! His 
opinion could not be gainsaid."* 

If our troubles are apt to come not in single file, but 
in ' whole battalions,' our triumphs also occasionally 
arrive in squadrons, or such at least was Haydon's ex- 
26 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

perience. Hard upon Canova's departure came a letter 
from Wordsworth, enclosing three sonnets, the last of 
which had, he avowed, been inspired by a letter of 
Haydon's on the struggles and hardships of the artist's 
life. This is now the familiar sonnet beginning, ' High 
is our calling. Friend,' and concluding: 

' Great is the glory, for the strife is hard.' 

' Now, reader," writes the delighted recipient, ' was not 
this glorious ? And you, young student, when you are 
pressed down by want in the midst of a great work, remem- 
ber what followed Haydon's perseverance. The freedom of 
his native town, the visit of Canova, and the sonnet of 
Wordsworth, and if that do not cheer you up, and make 
you go on, you are past all hope. ... It had, indeed, 
been a wonderful year for me. The Academicians were 
silenced. All classes were so enthusiastic and so delighted 
that, though I had lost seven months with weak eyes, 
and had only accomplished The Penitent Girl, The 
Mother, The Centurion and the Samaritan Woman, yet 
they were considered so decidedly in advance of all I 
had yet done, that my painting-room was crowd by rank, 
beauty, and fashion, and the picture was literally taken 
up as an honour to the nation.' 

But, alas ! neither the sonnets of poets nor the homage 
of the great would pay for models and colours, or put 
bread into the artist's mouth. Haydon could only live 
by renewed borrowing, for which method of support he 
endeavours, withoilt much success, to excuse himself. 
Once in the clutches of professional money-lenders, he 
confesses that ' the fine edge of honour was dulled. 
Though my honourable discharge of what I borrowed 
justified my borrowing again, yet it is a fallacious relief, 

27 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

because you must stop sooner or later; if you are 
punctual, and if you can pay in the long-run, why incur 
the debt at all ? Too proud to do small, modest things, 
that I might obtain fair means of subsistence as I pro- 
ceeded with my great work, I thought it no degradation 
to borrow, to risk the insult of refusal, and be bated 
down like the meanest dealer. Then I was liberal in my 
art ; I spared no expense for casts and prints, and did 
great things for the art by means of them. . . . Ought I, 
after such efforts as I had made, to have been left in this 
position by the Directors of the British Gallery or the 
Government ? ' 

The year 1816 was distinguished in Haydon's life as 
the epoch of his first, or, more accurately, his last serious 
love-affair. He was of a susceptible temperament, and 
seems to have been a favourite with women, whom he 
inspired with his own strong belief in himself; but he 
demanded much of the woman who was to be his wife, 
and hitherto he had not found one who seemed worthy 
of that exalted position. He had long been acquainted 
with Maria Foote, the actress, for whom he entertained 
a qualified admiration, and by her he was taken one day 
to a friend's house where, ' In one instant, the loveliest 
face that was ever created since God made Eve, smiled 
gently at my approach. The effect of her beauty was 
instantaneous. On the sofa lay a dying man and a boy 
about two years old. We shortly took leave. I never 

spoke a word, and after seeing M home, I returned 

to the house, and stood outside, in hopes that she would 
appear at the window. I went home, and for the first 
time in my life was really, heartily, thoroughly, passion- 
ately in love. I hated my pictures. I hated the Elgin 
Marbles. I hated books. I could not eat, or sleep, or 
28 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

think, or write, or talk. I got up early, examined the 
premises and street, and gave a man half-a-crown to let 
me sit concealed, and watch for her coming out. Day 
after day I grew more and more enraptured, till resistance 
was relinquished with a glorious defiance of restraint. 
Her conduct to her dying husband, her gentle reproof of 
my impassioned air, riveted my being. But I must not 
anticipate. Sufficient for the present, O reader, is it to 
tell thee that B. R. Haydon is, and for ever will be, in 
love with that woman, and that she is his wife.' 

The first note that Haydon has preserved from his 
friend Keats is dated November 1816, and runs : 

' My dear Sir, — Last evening wrought me up, and I 
cannot forbear sending you the following. — Yours imper- 
fectly, John Keats."" 

The ' following "* was nothing less than the noble sonnet, 
beginning — 'Great spirits now on earth are sojourning,'' 
with an allusion to Haydon in the lines : 

' And lo ! wliose steadfastness would never take 
A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.' 

Haydon wrote an enthusiastic letter of thanks, gave 
the young poet some good advice, and promised to send 
his sonnet to Wordsworth. ' Keats,' he records, ' was the 
only man I ever met who seemed and looked conscious 
of a high calling, except Wordsworth. Byron and Shelley 
were always sophisticating about their verses ; Keats 
sophisticated about nothing. He had made up his mind 
to do great things, and when he found that by his con- 
nection with the Examiner clique he had brought upon 
himself an overwhelming outcry of unjust aversion, he 
shrank up into himself, his diseased tendencies showed 

29 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

themselves, and he died a victim to mistakes, on the part 
of friends and enemies alike.' 

Haydon gives a curious account of his first meeting 
with Shelley, Avhich took place in the course of this year. 
The occasion was a dinner-party at James Smith's house, 
when Keats and Horace Smith were also among the 
guests. ' I seated myself,' writes Haydon, ' right opposite 
Shelley, as I was told afterwards, for I did not then know 
what hectic, spare, weakly, yet intellectual-looking 
creature it was, carving a bit of broccoli or cabbage in 
his plate, as if it had been the substantial wing of a 
chicken. In a few minutes Shelley opened the conversa- 
tion by saying in the most feminine and gentle voice, " As 

to that detestable religion, the Christian " I looked 

astounded, but casting a glance round the table, I easily 
saw that I was to be set at that evening vi et armis. . . . 
I felt like a stag at bay, and resolved to gore without 
mercy. Shelley said the Mosaic and Christian dispensa- 
tion were inconsistent. I SAvore they were not, and that 
the Ten Commandments had been the foundation of all 
the codes of law on the earth, Shelley denied it. I 
affirmed they were, neither of us using an atom of logic' 
This edifying controversy continued until all parties grew 
very warm, and said unpleasant things to one another. 
After this dinner, Haydon made up his mind to subject 
himself no more to the chance of these discussions, but 
gradually to withdraw from this freethinking circle. 

The chief artistic events of the year, from our hero's 
point of view, were, the final settlement of the Elgin 
Marbles question, and his own attempt to found a school. 
The Committee appointed by Government to examine 
and report upon the Marbles refused to call Haydon as a 
witness on Lord Elgin's side, but the artist embodied his 
30 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

views on the subject in a paper which appeared in both 
the Examiner and the Champion. This article, which 
was afterwards translated into French and Italian, con- 
tained a scathing attack on Payne Knight, and was said 
by Sir Thomas Lawrence to have saved the Elgin 
Marbles, and ruined Haydon. However this may be, 
the Government, it will be remembered, decided to buv 
the treasures for =£'35,000, a sum considerably less than 
that which Lord Elgin had spent on bringing them to 
England. 

The School of Haydon was first instituted with three 
distinguished pupils in the persons of the three Land- 
seer brothers, to whom were afterwards added William 
Bewick, Eastlake, Harvey, Lance, and Chatfield. Haydon 
set his disciples to draw from the Raphael Cartoons, 
two of which were brought up from Hampton Court to 
the British Gallery, and, as soon as they Avere sufficiently 
advanced, he sent them to the Museum to draw from 
the Elgin Marbles. ' Their cartoons," he writes, ' drawn 
full size, of the Fates, of Theseus and the Ilissus, literally 
made a noise in Europe. An order came from the great 
Goethe at Weimar for a set for his own house, the 
furniture of which having been since bought by the 
Government, and the house kept up as it was in Goethe's 
time, the cartoons of my pupils are thus preserved, 
whilst in England the rest are lying about in cellars 
and corners."* The early days of the School thus held out 
a promise for the future, which unfortunately was not 
fulfilled. Haydon contrived to involve two or three of 
his pupils in his own financial embarrassments, by inducing 
them to sign accommodation bills, a proceeding which 
broke up the establishment, and brought a lasting stain 
upon his reputation. 

31 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

In 1817 Haydon was introduced to Miss Mitford, who 
greatly admired his work, and a warm friendship sprang 
up between the pair. In May, Miss Mitford wrote to 
Sir WilHam Elford : ' The charm of the Exhibition is a 
chalk-drawing by Mr. Haydon taken, as he tells vie, 
from a mother who had lost her child. It is the very 
triumph of expression. I have not yet lost the im- 
pression which it made upon my mind and senses, and 
which vented itself in a sonnet.' A visit to the studio 
followed, and Miss Mitford was charmed with the room, 
the books, the great unfinished picture, and the artist 
himself — with his bonhomie, naivete, and enthusiasm. 
With all her heart she admires the noble, independent 
spirit of Haydon, who, she declares, is quite one of the 
old heroes come to life again — one of Shakespeare''s men, 
full of spirit, endurance, and moral courage. She con- 
cludes her account with an expression of regret that he 
should be ' such a fright.' Now Haydon is generally 
described by his contemporaries as a good-looking man, 
though short in stature, with an antique head, aquiline 
features, and fine dark eyes. His later portraits are 
chiefly remarkable for the immensely wide mouth with 
which he seems to be endowed, but in an early sketch 
by Wilkie he is represented as a picturesque youth with 
an admirably modelled profile. 

To Miss Mitford we owe a quaint anecdote of our hero, 
which, better than pages of analysis, depicts the man. 
It appears that Leigh Hunt, who was a great keeper of 
birthdays and other anniversaries, took it into his head 
to celebrate the birthday of Papa Haydn by giving a 
dinner, drinking toasts, and crowning the composer's 
bust with laurels. Some malicious person told Haydon 
that the Hunts were celebrating his birthday, a com- 
32 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

pliment that struck him as natural and well deserved. 
Hastening to Hampstead, he broke in upon the company, 
and addressed to them a formal speech, in which he 
thanked them for the honour they had done him, 
but explained that they had made a little mistake in 
the day ! As a pendant to this anecdote, Miss Mitford 
relates that Haydon told her he had painted the head of 
his Christ seven times, and that the final head was a 
portrait of himself. It is only fair to remember that he 
always regarded it as the least successful part of the 
work. 

While the picture was in progress, Haydon decided to 
put in a side group with Voltaire as a sceptic, and 
Newton as a believer. This idea, founded on the inten- 
tional anachronisms of some of the old masters, was 
afterwards extended, Hazlitt being introduced as an 
investigator, and Wordsworth bowing in reverence, with 
Keats in the background. The two poets had never yet 
met in actual life, but in December 1817, Wordsworth 
being then on a visit to London, Haydon invited Keats 
to meet him. The other guests were Charles Lamb and 
Monkhouse. 'Wordsworth was in fine cue,' writes 
Haydon, 'and we had a glorious set-to — on Homer, 
Shakespeare, Milton, and Virgil. Lamb got exceedingly 
merry, and exquisitely witty, and his fun, in the midst of 
Wordsworth's solemn intonations of oratory, was like the 
sarcasm and wit of the fool in the intervals of Lear's 
passion.' Although the specimens of wit recorded no 
longer seem inspired, we can well believe Haydon's state- 
ment that it was an immortal evening, and that in all his 
life he never passed a more delightful time. We have 
abundant testimony to the fact that the artist-host was 
himself an exceptionally fine talker. Hazlitt said that 
c 33 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

* Haydon talked well on most subjects that interest one ; 
indeed, better than any painter I ever met.** Words- 
worth and Talfourd echoed this opinion, and Miss 
Mitford tells us that he was a most brilliant talker — 
racy, bold, original, and vigorous, 'a sort of Benvenuto 
Cellini, all air and fire/ 

It was not until January 1820 that the 'Entry into 
Jerusalem' was finished, when the artist, though absol- 
utely penniless, engaged the great room at the Egyptian 
Hall for its exhibition, at a rent of oPSOO, His friends 
helped him over the incidental expenses, and in a state 
of feverish excitement he awaited the opening day. 
Public curiosity had been aroused about the work, and 
early in the afternoon there was a block of carriages in 
Piccadilly ; the passage was thronged with servants, 
and soon the artist was holding what he described as a 
' regular rout at noonday.' While Keats and Hazlitt were 
rejoicing in a corner, Mrs. Siddons swept in, and in her 
loud, deep, tragic tones, declared that the head of Christ 
was completely successful. By her favourable verdict, 
Haydon, who had his doubts, was greatly consoled, not 
because Mrs. Siddons had any reputation as an art- 
critic, but because he recognised that she was an expert 
on the subject of dramatic expression. A thousand 
pounds was offered for the picture and refused, while the 
net profits from the exhibition, in London alone, 
amounted to o£'1300. Haydon has been commonly 
represented as an unlucky man, who was always neglected 
by the public and the patrons, and never met with his 
professional deserts. But up to this time, as has been 
seen, he had found ready sympathy and admiration from 
the public, practical aid during the time of struggle from 
his friends, and a fair reward for his labours. With the 
34 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

exhibition of the 'Entry into Jerusalem,' his reputation 
was at its zenith ; a little skilful engineering of the 
success thus gained might have extricated him from his 
difficulties, and enabled him to keep his head above 
water for the remainder of his days. But, owing chiefly 
to his own impracticability, his story from this point is 
one of decline, gradual at first, but increasing in velocity, 
until the end came in disaster and despair. 



PART II 

Even while Haydon was in the first flush of his success, 
there were signs that he had achieved no lasting triumph. 
Sir George Beaumont proposed that the British Gallery 
should buy the great picture, but the Directors refused 
to give the price asked — oCSOOO. An effort to sell it by 
subscription fell through, only i!'200 being paid into 
Coutts\ When the exhibition closed in London, Haydon 
took his masterpiece to Scotland, and showed it both in 
Edinburgh and in Glasgow, netting another d^'OOO, 
which, however, was quickly eaten up by hungry 
creditors. The picture was too big to tempt a private 
purchaser, and in spite of the admiration it had aroused, 
it remained like a white elephant upon its creator's 
hands. 

On his return to town, after being feted by Sir Walter 
Scott, Lockhart, and ' Christopher North,' Haydon 
finished his commission for Sir George Phillips, ' Christ 
Sleeping in the Garden,' which, he frankly admitted, was 
one of the worst pictures he ever painted. Scarcely was 

35 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

this off his easel than he was inspired with a tremendous 
conception for the ' Raising of Lazarus/ He ordered a 
canvas such as his soul loved, nineteen feet long by fifteen 
high, and dashed in his first idea. He was still deeply in 
debt, still desperately in love (his lady was now a widow), 
and the new picture would take at least two years to paint. 
Nevertheless, he worked away with all his customary 
energy, and prayed fervently that he might paint a great 
masterpiece, never doubting but that his prayers would 
be heard. 

With the end of this year, 1820, Haydon''s Autobio- 
graphy breaks off, and the rest of his life is told in his 
Journals and Letters. At the beginning of 1821, when 
he was fairly at work on his Lazarus, he confides to his 
Journal his conviction that difficulties are to be his lot 
in pecuniary matters, and adds : ' My })lan must be to 
make up my mind to meet them, and fag as I can — to 
lose no single moment, but seize on time that is free 
from disturbance, and make the most of it. If I can 
float, and keep alive attention to my situation through 
another picture, I will reach the shore. I am now clearly 
in sight of it, and I will yet land to the sound of 
trumpets, and the shouts of my friends.' 

In spite of his absorption in his work, Haydon found 
time for the society of his literary friends. On March 7, he 
records : ' Sir Walter Scott, Lamb, Wilkie, and Procter 
have been with me all the morning, and a delightful 
morning we have had. Scott operated on us like cham- 
pagne and whisky mixed. ... It is singular how success 
and the want of it operate on two extraordinary men, 
Walter Scott and Wordsworth. Scott enters a room 
and sits at table with the coolness and self-possession of 
conscious fame ; Wordsworth with a mortified elevation 
36 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

of the head, as if fearful he was not estimated as he 
deserved. Scott can afford to talk of trifles, because he 
knows the world will think him a great man who con- 
descends to trifle ; Wordsworth must always be eloquent 
and profound, because he knows that he is considered 
childish and puerile. ... I think that Scotfs success 
would have made Wordsworth insufferable, while Words- 
worth's failures would not have rendered Scott a whit 
less delightful. Scott is the companion of Nature in 
all her moods and freaks, while Wordsworth follows 
her like an apostle, sharing her solemn moods and 
impressions.' 

In these rough notes, unusual powers of observation 
and insight into character are displayed. That Haydon 
also had a keen sense of humour is proved by his account 
of an evening at Mrs. Siddons' where the hostess read 
aloud Macbeth to her guests. ' She acts Macbeth herself 
much better than either Kemble or Kean,' he writes. ' It 
is extraordinary the awe that this wonderful woman 
inspires. After her first reading the men retired to tea. 
While we were all eating toast and tinkling cups and 
saucers, she began again. It was like the effect of a 
mass-bell at Madrid. All noise ceased; we slunk to our 
seats like boors, two or three of the most distinguished 
men of the day, Avith the very toast in their mouths, 
afraid to bite. It was curious to see Lawrence in this 
predicament, to hear him bite by degrees, and then stop, 
for fear of making too much crackle, his eyes full of 
water from the constraint ; and at the same time to hear 
Mrs. Siddons' ' eye of newt and toe of frog,' and to see 
Lawrence give a sly bite, and then look awed, and pretend 
to be listening.' 

In the spring of 1821 Haydon lost two intimate 

37 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

friends, John Scott, who was killed by Christie in the 
Blackwood duel, and Keats, who died at Rome on 
February 23. He briefly sums up his impressions of the 
dead poet in his Journal. ' In fireside conversation he 
was weak and inconsistent, but he was in his glory in the 
fields, . . . He was the most unselfish of human creatures : 
unadapted to this world, he cared not for himself, and 
put himself to inconvenience for the sake of his friends. 
He had an exquisite sense of humour, and too refined a 
notion of female purity to bear the little arts of love 
with patience. . . . He began life full of hopes, fiery, 
impetuous, ungovernable, expecting the world to fall at 
once beneath his powers. Unable to bear the sneers of 
ignorance or the attacks of envy, he began to despond, 
and flew to dissipation as a relief. For six weeks he was 
scarcely sober, and to show what a man does to gratify 
his appetites when once they get the better of him, he 
once covered his tongue and throat, as far as he could 
reach, with Cayenne pepper, in order to appreciate the 
" delicious coldness of claret in all its glory " — his own 
expression.' 

June 22, 1821, is entered in the Journal as ' A remark- 
able day in my life. I am arrested ! ' This incident, 
unfortunately, became far too common in after-days to 
be at all remarkable, but the first touch of the bailiff^s 
hand was naturally something of a shock, and Haydon 
filled three folio pages with angry comments on the 
iniquity of the laws against debtors. He was able, 
however, to arrange the affair before night, and the 
sheriff^s officer, whose duty it Avas to keep him in safe 
custody during the day, was so profoundly impressed by 
the sight of the Lazarus, that he allowed his prisoner to 
go free on parole. This incident has been likened to 
38 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

that of the bravoes arrested in their murderous intent 
by the organ-playing of Stradella ; and also to the case 
of the soldiers of the Constable who, when sacking Rome, 
broke into Parmigiano's studio, but were so struck by 
the beauty of his pictures that they protected him and 
his property. 

In despite of debts, difficulties, and the lack of com- 
missions, Haydon, who had now been in love for five 
years, was married on October 10, 1821, to the young 
widow, Mary Hyman, who was blessed with two children, 
and a jointure of fifty pounds a year. His Journal for 
this period is full of raptures over his blissful state, as 
also are his letters to his friends. To Miss Mitford he 
writes from Windsor, where the honeymoon was spent : 
'Here I am, sitting by my dearest Mary with all the 
complacency of a well-behaved husband, writing to you 
while she is working quietly on some unintelligible part 
of a lady's costume. You do not know how proud I am 
of saying my wife. I never felt half so proud of Solomon 
or Macbeth, as I am of being the husband of this tender 
little bit of lovely humanity. . . . There never was such 
a creature ; and although her face is perfect, and has 
more feeling in it than Lady Hamilton's, her manner 
to me is perfectly enchanting, and more bewitching than 
her beauty. I think I shall put over my painting-room 
door, "Love, solitude, and painting.""* On the last day 
of the year, according to his wont, Haydon sums up his 
feelings and impressions of the past twelve months. ' I 
don't know how it is, but I get less reflective as I get 
older. I seem to take things as they come without 
thought. Perhaps being married to my dearest Mary, 
and having no longer anything to hope in love, I get 
more content with my lot, which, God knows, is rapturous 

39 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

beyond imagination. Here I sit sketching, with the 
loveliest face before me, smiling and laughing, and " soli- 
tude is not." Marriage has increased my happiness 
beyond expression. In the intervals of study, a few 
minutes' conversation with a creature one loves is the 
greatest of all reliefs. God bless us both ! My pecuniary 
difficulties are great, but my love is intense, my ambition 
is intense, and my hope in God's protection cheering. 
Bewick, my pupil, has realised my hopes in his picture 
of " Jacob and Rachel." But it is cold work talking of 
pupils when one's soul is full of a beloved woman ! I 
am really and truly in love, and without affectation, I 
can talk, write, or think of nothing else.' 

But if a love-match brings increased happiness, it also 
brings weightier cares and responsibilities. Haydon's 
credit had been in a measure restored by the success of 
his last picture, but his creditors seemed to resent his 
marriage, and during the months that followed, gave 
him little peace. He was obliged, in the intervals of 
painting, to rush hither and thither to pacify this 
creditor, quiet the fears of that, remove the ill-will of a 
third, and borrow money at usurious interest from a 
fourth in order to keep his engagements with a fifth. In 
spite of all his compromises and arrangements, he was 
arrested more than once during this year, but so far he 
had been able to keep out of prison. His favourite 
pupil Bewick, who sat to him for the head of Lazarus 
(being appropriately pale and thin from want of food) 
has left an account of the difficulties under which the 
picture was painted. ' I think I see the painter before 
me,' he writes, ' his palette and brushes in the left hand, 
returning from the sheriff's officer in the adjoining room, 
pale, calm, and serious — no agitation — mounting his 
40 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

high steps and continuing his arduous task, and as he 
looks round to his pallid model, whispering, "Egad, 
Bewick, I have just been arrested ; that is the third time. 
If they come again, I shall not be able to go on."' 

On December 7, the Lazarus was finished, and five 
days later Hay don's eldest son Frank was born. The 
happy father was profoundly moved by his new re- 
sponsibilities, as well as by his wife's suffering and 
danger. On the last day of 1822 he thanks liis Maker 
for the happiest year of his life, and also 'for being 
permitted to finish another great picture, which must 
add to my reputation, and go to strengthen the art. . , . 
Grant it triumphant success. Grant that I may soon 
begin the " Crucifixion," and persevere with that, until I 
bring it to a conclusion equally positive and glorious.' 
Haydon's prayers, which have been not inaptly described 
as ' begging letters to the Almighty,' are invariably 
couched in terms that would be appropriate in an appeal 
to the President of a Celestial Academy. As his bio- 
grapher points out, he prayed as though he would take 
heaven by storm, and although he often asked for 
humility, the demands for this gift bore very little 
proportion to those for glories and triumphs. 

The Lazarus, though it showed signs of haste and 
exaggeration, natural, enough considering the conditions 
under which it was painted, was acclaimed as a great work, 
and the receipts from its exhibition were of a most satis- 
factory nature, mounting up to nearly two hundred 
pounds a week. Instead of calling his creditors together, 
and coming to some arrangement Avith them, Haydon, 
rendered over-confident by success, spent his time in 
preparing a new and vaster canvas for his conception of 
the Crucifixion. The sight of crowds of people paying 

41 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

their shillings to view the Lazarus roused the cupidity 
of one of the creditors, who, against his own interests, 
killed the goose that was laying golden eggs. On April 
13, an execution was put in, and the picture was seized. 
A few days later Haydon was arrested, and carried to 
the King's Bench, his house was taken possession of, and 
all his property was advertised for sale. 

On April 22, he dates the entry in his Journal, ' King's 
Bench,** and consoles himself with the reflection that 
Bacon, Raleigh, and Cervantes had also suffered imprison- 
ment. His friends rallied round him at this melancholy 
period. Lord Mulgrave, Sir George Beaumont, Scott 
and Wilkie, giving not only sympathy but practical 
help. At his forced sale a portion of his casts and 
painting materials was bought in by his friends in order 
that he might be enabled to set to work again as soon as 
he was released from prison. A meeting of creditors 
was called, and Haydon addressed to them a character- 
istic letter, begging to be spared the disgrace of ' taking 
the Act,' and complaining of the hardship of his treat- 
ment in being torn from his family and his art, after 
devoting the best years of his life to the honour of his 
country. But as the creditors cared nothing for the 
honour of the country, he was compelled to pass through 
the Bankruptcy Court, and on July 25 he regained his 
freedom. It was now his desire to return to his dis- 
mantled house, and, without a bed to lie upon, or a 
shilling in his pocket, to finish his gigantic ' Crucifixion."* 
But his wife, the long-suffering Mary, persuaded him to 
abandon this idea, to retire to modest lodgings for a 
time, and to paint portraits and cabinet-pictures until 
better fortune dawned. 

Haydon yielded to her desire, but he never ceased to 
' 42 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

regret what he considered his degradation. He would 
have preferred to allow his friends and creditors to 
support himself and his family, while he worked at a 
canvas of unsaleable size, a proceeding that most men 
would regard as involving a deeper degradation than 
painting pot-boilers. 

Hajdon began his new career by painting the ' portrait 
of a gentleman." ' Ah, my poor lay-figure," he groans, 
' he, who bore the drapery of Christ and the grave-clothes 
of Lazarus, the cloak of the centurion and the gown of 
Newton, was to-day disgraced by a black coat and waist- 
coat. I apostrophised him, and he seemed to sympathise, 
and bowed his head as if ashamed to look me in the 
face." Hay don's detestation of portrait-painting pro- 
bably arose from the secret consciousness that he was not 
successful in this branch of his art. His taste for the 
grandiose led him to depict his sitters larger than life, 
if not 'twice as natural.' His objection to painting 
small pictures was partly justified by his weakness of 
sight. It was easy for him to dash in heads on a large 
scale in a frenzy of inspiration, but he seemed to lack 
the faculty for ' finish."" The faults of disproportion and 
apparent carelessness that disfigure many of his works, 
are easily accounted for by his method of painting, which 
is thus described by his son Frederick, who often acted 
as artist's model : — 

' His natural sight was of little or no use to him at any 
distance, and he would wear, one over the other, two or 
three pairs of large round concave spectacles, so powerful 
as greatly to diminish objects. He would mount his 
steps, look at you through one pair of glasses, then push 
them all back on his head, and paint by the naked eye 
close to the canvas. After some minutes he would pull 

43 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

down one pair of his glasses, look at you, then step down, 
walk slowly backwards to the wall, and study the effect 
through one, two, or three pairs of spectacles ; then with 
one pair only look long and steadily in the looking-glass 
at the side to examine the reflection of his work ; then 
mount his steps and paint again. How he ever con- 
trived to paint a head or limb in proportion is a mystery 
to me, for it is clear that he had lost his natural sight in 
boyhood. He is, as he said, the first blind man who ever 
successfully painted pictures.' 

Unfortunately, Haydon's self-denial in painting por- 
traits was not well rewarded, for commissions were few, 
and the clouds beo^an to eather again. One of his 

o o o 

sitters had to be appealed to for money for coals, and if 
such appeals Avere frequent, the scarcity of sitters was 
hardly surprising. On one occasion he pawned all his 
books, except a few old favourites, for three pounds, and 
entries like the following are of almost daily occurrence 
in the Journal : — ' Obliged to go out in the rain, I left 
my room with no coals in it, and no money to buy 
any. . . . Not a shilling in the world. Sold nothing, 
and not likely to. Baker called, and was insolent. If 
he were to stop the supplies, God knows what would 
become of my children ! Landlord called — kind and 
sorry. Butcher called, respectful, but disappointed. 
Tailor good - humoured, and willing to wait. . . . 
Walked about the town. I was so full of grief, I 
could not have concealed it at home."* 

In the midst of all his harassing anxieties, Haydon 
was untiring in his efforts to obtain employment of the 
heroic kind that his soul craved. He had begun to 
realise that he had small chance of disposing of huge 
historical pictures to private patrons, and that his only 
44 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

hope rested with the Government. Even while confined 
in prison he had persuaded Brougham to present a 
petition to the House of Commons setting forth the 
desirability of appointing a Committee to inquire into 
the state of national art, and by a regular distribution 
of a small portion of the public funds, to give public 
encouragement to the professors of historical painting. 
No sooner did he regain his freedom than Haydon 
attacked Sir Charles Long with a plan for the decoration 
of the great room of the Admiralty, to be followed by 
the decoration of the House of Lords and St. Paul's 
Cathedral. This was but the beginning of a long series 
of impassioned pleadings with public men in favour of 
national employment for historical painters. Silence, 
snubs, formal acknowledgments, curt refusals, all were 
lost upon Haydon, who kept pouring in page after page 
of agonised petition on Sir Charles Long, the Duke of 
Wellington, Lord Grey, Lord Melbourne, and Sir Robert 
Peel, and seemed to be making no way with any of them. 
Haydon thought himself ill-used, throughout his 
life, by statesmen and patrons, and many of his 
friends were of the same opinion. But both he 
and they ignored the fact that it is impossible to 
create an artificial market for works of art for which 
there is no spontaneous popular demand. A despotic 
prince may, if he chooses, give his court painter caTte 
hlanclie for the decorations of national buildings, and 
gain nothing but glory for his liberality, even when it is 
exercised at the expense of his people. But in a country 
that possesses a constitutional government, more especially 
when that country has been impoverished by long and 
costly wars, the minister who devotes large sums to the 
encouragement of national art has the indignation of an 

45 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

over-taxed populace to reckon with. It is little short of 
an insult to offer men historic frescoes when they are 
clamouring for bread. Haydon was unfortunate in his 
period, which was not favourable for a crusade on behalf 
of high art. The recent pacification of the Continent, 
and the opening up of its treasures, tempted English 
noblemen and plutocrats to invest their money in old 
masters to the neglect of native artists, who were only 
thought worthy to paint portraits of their patrons' wives 
and children. We who have inherited the Peel, the 
Angerstein, and the Hertford collections, can scarcely 
bring ourselves to regret the sums that were lavished 
on Flemish and Italian masterpieces, sums that might 
have kept our Barrys and Haydons from bankruptcy. 

In January 1824 Haydon left his lodgings, and took 
the lease of a house in Connaught Terrace, for which he 
paid, or promised to pay, a hundred and twenty pounds 
a year, a heavy rent for a recently insolvent artist. 
Fortunately, he acquired with the house a landlord of 
amazing benevolence, who took pot-boilers in lieu of 
rent, and meekly submitted to abuse when nothing else 
was forthcoming. As soon as he was fairly settled, 
Haydon arranged the composition of a large picture of 
' Pharaoh dismissing Moses,' upon which he worked in the 
intervals of portrait-painting. A curious and obviously 
impartial sketch of him, as he appeared at this time, is 
drawn by Borrow in his Lavengro. The hero's elder 
brother comes up to town, it may be remembered, to 
commission a certain heroic artist to paint an heroic 
picture of a very unheroic mayor of Norwich. The tAvo 
brothers go together to the painter of Lazarus, and have 
some difficulty in obtaining admission to his studio, being 
mistaken by the servant for duns. They found a man of 
46 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

about thirty-five, with a clever, intelligent countenance, 
sharp grey eyes, and hair cut a la Raphael. He possessed, 
moreover, a broad chest, and would have been a very fine 
figure if his legs had not been too short. He was then 
engaged upon his Moses, whose legs, in Lavengro's opinion, 
were also too short. His eyes glistened at the mention 
of a hundred pounds for the mayor''s portrait, and he 
admitted that he was confoundedly short of money. 
The painter was anxious that Lavengro should sit to 
him for his Plutarch, which honour that gentleman 
firmly declined. Years afterwards he saw the por- 
trait of the mayor, a ' mighty portly man, with a bull's 
head, black hair, a body like a dray horse, and legs and 
thighs corresponding ; a man six foot high at the least. 
To his bulPs head, black hair and body, the painter had 
done justice ; there was one point, however, in which the 
portrait did not correspond with the original — the legs 
were disproportionately short, the painter having sub- 
stituted his own legs for those of the mayor, which, 
when I perceived, I rejoiced that I had not consented to 
be painted as Pharaoh, for if I had, the chances are 
that he would have served me in exactly the same way as 
he had served Moses and the mayor.' 

The painting of provincial mayors was so little to 
Haydon's taste that by the close of this year we find him 
in deep depression of spirits, unrelieved by even a spark 
of his old sanguine buoyancy. ' I candidly confess,' he 
writes, 'I find my glorious art a bore. I cannot with 
pleasure paint any individual head for the mere purpose 
of domestic gratification. I must have a great subject 
to excite public feeling. . . . Alas ! I have no object in 
life now but my wife and children, and almost wish I 
had not them, that I might sit still and meditate on 

47 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

human grandeur and human ambition till I died. ... I 
am not yet forty, and can tell of a destiny melancholy 
and rapturous, bitter beyond all bitterness, cursed, heart- 
breaking, maddening. But I dare not write now. The 
melancholy demon has grappled my heart, and crushed its 
turbulent beatings in his black, bony, clammy, clenching 
fingers.' 

It was just when things seemed at their darkest, when 
the waters threatened to overwhelm the unfortunate 
artist, that a rope Avas thrown to him. His legal adviser, 
Mr. Kearsley, a practical and prosperous man, came for- 
ward with an offer of help. He agreed to provide =£300 
for one year on certain conditions, in order that Haydon 
might be freed from pressure for that period, and be in 
a position to ask a fair price for his work. When not 
engaged on portraits, he was to paint historical pictures 
of a saleable size. The advance was to be secured on a 
life insurance, and to be repaid out of the sale of the 
pictures, with interest at four per cent. This offer was 
accepted with some reluctance, and the following year 
was one of comparative peace and quiet. The Journal 
gives evidence of greater ease of mind, and renewed 
pleasure in work. Haydon's love for his wife waxed 
rather than waned with the passing of the years, and his 
children, of whom he too soon had the poor man''s quiver- 
ful, were an ever-present delight. ' My domestic happiness 
is doubled,'' he writes about this time. ' Daily and hourly 
my sweet Mary proves the justice of my choice. My 
boy Frank gives tokens of being gifted at two years old, 
God bless him ! My ambition would be to make him a 
public man. ... I have got into my old delightful habits 
of study again. The mixture of literature and painting 
I really think the perfection of human happiness. I 
48 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

paint a head, revel in colour, hit an expression, sit down 
fatigued, take up a poet or historian, write my own 
thoughts, muse on the thoughts of others, and hours, 
troubles, and the tortures of disappointed ambition 
pass and are forgotten.' 

Portraits, and one or t^vo commissions for small 
pictures, kept Haydon afloat throughout this year, but 
a widespread commercial distress in the early part of 
1826 affected his gains, and in February he records that 
for the last five weeks he has been suffering the tortures 
of the Inferno. He was persuaded, much against his will, 
to send his pictures to the Academy, and he was pro- 
portionately annoyed at the adverse criticism that greeted 
his attempts at portraiture. This attack he regarded as 
the result of a deep-laid plot to injure him in a lucrative 
branch of his art. He consoled himself by beginning a 
large picture of 'Alexander taming Bucephalus," the ' finest 
subject on earth."* Through his friend and opposite 
neighbour, Carew the sculptor, Haydon made an appeal 
to Lord Egremont, that generous patron of the arts, for 
help or employment, in response to which Lord Egre- 
mont promised to call and see the Alexander. There is 
a pathetic touch in the account of this visit, on which so 
much depended. Lord Egremont called at Carew's house 
on his way, and Haydon, who saw him go in, relates that 
' Dear Mary and I were walking on the leads, and agreed 
that it would not be quite right to look too happy, being 
without a sixpence ; so we came in, I to the parlour to 
look through the blinds, and she to the nursery." Happily, 
the patron was favourably impressed by the picture, and 
promised to give £600 for it when it was finished. In 
order to pay his models Haydon was obliged to pawn one 
of his two lay-figures, since he could not bring himself 
D 49 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

to part with any more books. ' I may do without a lay- 
figure for a time,' he writes, ' but not without old Homer. 
The truth is I am fonder of books than of anything on 
earth. I consider myself a man of great powers, excited 
to an art which limits their exercise. In politics, law, 
or literature they would have had a full and glorious 
swing, and I should have secured a competence."' 

The fact that Haydon was more at home among the 
literary men of his acquaintance than among his fellow- 
artists was a natural result of his intense love of books, 
and his keen interest in contemporary history. And it 
is evident that his own character and work impressed 
his poetical friends, for we find that not only Words- 
worth and Keats, but Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, Miss 
Mitford, and Miss Barrett addressed to him admiring 
verses. For Byron, whom he never knew, Haydon 
cherished an ardent admiration, and the following in- 
teresting passage, comparing that poet with Wordsworth, 
occurs in one of his letters to Miss Mitford, who had 
criticised Byron's taste : — 

'You are unjust, depend upon it,' he writes, 'in your 
estimate of Byron's poetry, and wrong in ranking Words- 
worth beyond him. There are things in Byron's poetry 
so exquisite that fifty or five hundred years hence they 
will be read, felt, and adored throughout the world. I 
grant that Wordsworth is very pure, very holy, very 
orthodox, and occasionally very elevated, highly poetical, 
and oftener insufferably obscure, starched, dowdy, anti- 
human, and anti-sympathetic, but he never will be ranked 
above Byron, nor classed with Milton. ... I dislike his 
selfish Quakerism, his affectation of superior virtue, his 
utter insensibility to the frailties, the beautiful frailties 
of passion. I was walking with him once in Pall Mall ; we 
50 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

darted into Christie's. In the corner of the room was a 
beautiful copy of the "Cupid and Psyche" (statues) kissing. 
Cupid is taking her lovely chin, and turning her pouting 
mouth to meet his, while he archly bends down, as if 
saying, " Pretty dear ! " . . . Catching sight of the Cupid 
as he and I were coming out, Wordsworth's face reddened, 
he showed his teeth, and then said in a loud voice, " The 
Dev-v-vils r'' There's a mind ! Ought not this exquisite 
group to have softened his heart as much as his old, 
grey-mossed rocks, his withered thorn, and his dribbling 
mountain streams ? I am altered very much about 
Wordsworth from finding him too hard, too elevated, 
to attend to the voice of humanity. No, give me Byron 
with all his spite, hatred, depravity, dandyism, vanity, 
frankness, passion, and idleness, rather than Wordsworth 
with all his heartless communion with woods and grass.' 

An attempt on Haydon's part to reconcile himself 
with his old enemies, the Academicians, ended in failure. 
He heads his account of the transaction, 'The dis- 
grace of my life.' He was received with cold civility 
by the majority of the artists to whom he paid con- 
ciliatory visits, and when he put his name down for 
election, he received not a single vote. A more agreeable 
memory of this year was a visit to Petworth, where, as he 
records, with Pepysian naivete, 'Lord Egremont has placed 
me in one of the most magnificent bedrooms I ever saw. 
It speaks more of what he thinks of my talents than any- 
thing that ever happened to me. . . . What a destiny is 
mine ! One year in the King's Bench, the companion of 
gamblers and scoundrels — sleeping in wretchedness and 
dirt on a flock -bed — another reposing in down and velvet 
in a splendid apartment in a splendid house, the guest of 
rank, fashion, and beauty.' 

51 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

Haydon\s painting-room was now, as he loved to see 
it, crowded with distinguished visitors, who were anxious 
to inspect the picture of Alexander before it was sent to 
the Exhibition. Among them came Charles Lamb, who 
afterwards set down some impressions and suggestions in 
the following characteristic fashion : — 

' Dear Raffaele Haydox, 

' Did the maid tell you I came to see your picture ? 
I think the face and bearing of the Bucephalus-tamer 
very noble, his flesh too effeminate or painty, ... I 
had small time to pick out praise or blame, for two lord- 
like Bucks came in, upon whose strictures my presence 
seemed to impose restraint ; I plebeian^ off therefore. 

' I think I have hit on a subject for you, but can't swear 
it was never executed — I never heard of its being — 
" Chaucer beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street." 
Think of the old dresses, houses, etc, " It seemeth 
that both these learned men (Gower and Chaucer) were 
of the Inner Temple ; for not many years since Master 
Buckley did see a record in the same house where 
Geoffrey Chaucer was fined two shillings for beating a 
Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street," — Chmicers Life, by T. 
Spcght. — Yours in haste (salt fish waiting). 

' C. Lamb.' 

In June Haydon was again arrested, and imprisoned 
in the King's Bench, Once more he appealed to 
Parliament by a petition presented by Brougham, and 
to the public through letters to the newspapers. Par- 
liament and the larger public turned a deaf ear, but 
private friends rallied to his support. Scott, him- 
self a ruined man, sent a cheque and a charming 
52 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

letter of sympathy, while Lockhart suggested that a sub- 
scription should be raised to buy one or more pictures. 
A public meeting of sympathisers was convened, at which 
it was stated that Haydon's debts amounted to dfl767, 
while his only available asset Avas an unfinished picture 
of the ' Death of Eucles/ Over a hundred pounds was 
subscribed in the room, and it was decided that the 
Eucles should be raffled in ten-pound shares. The 
result of these efforts was the release of the prisoner at 
the end of July. 

During this last term of imprisonment Haydon wit- 
nessed the masquerade, or mock election by his fellow- 
prisoners, and instantly decided that he Avould paint 
the scene, which offered unique opportunities for both 
humour and pathos. This picture, Hogarthian in type, 
was finished and exhibited before the close of the year. 
The exhibition was moderately successful, but the picture 
did not sell, and Haydon was once more sinking into 
despair, when the king expressed a desire to have the 
work sent down to Windsor for his inspection. Hopes 
were raised high once more, and this time were not dis- 
appointed. George iv. bought the ' Mock Election,'' and 
promptly paid the price of five hundred guineas. Thus 
encouraged, Haydon set to work with renewed spirit on 
a companion picture, ' Chairing the Member,' which was 
finished and exhibited, with some earlier works, in the 
course of the summer. The king refused to buy the new 
work, but it found a purchaser at =£^300, and the net 
receipts from the two pictures and their exhibition 
amounted to close upon £1400, a sum which, observes 
Haydon, in better circumstances and with less expense, 
would have afforded a comfortable independence for the 
year! 

53 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

The Eucles occupied the artist during the remainder 
of 1828, and early in 1829 he began a new Hogarthian 
subject, a Punch and Judy show. He was still paint- 
ing portraits when he could get sitters, and on April 
15, he notes : ' Finished one cursed portrait — have only 
one more to touch, and then I shall be free. I have an 
exquisite gratification in painting portraits wretchedly. 
I love to see the sitters look as if they thought, " Can 
this be Haydon*'s — the great Haydon's painting?" 
I chuckle. I am rascal enough to take their money, 
and chuckle more.' It must be owned that Haydon 
thoroughly deserved his ill-success in this branch of his 
art. When ' Punch ' was finished the king sent for it to 
Windsor, but though he admired, he did not buy, and 
the picture eventually passed into the possession of 
Haydon's old friend. Dr. Darling, who had helped him 
out of more than one difficulty. A large representation 
of ' Xenophon and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand ' 
was now begun, but before it was finished the painter 
was once more in desperate straits. In vain he sent 
up urgent petitions to his Maker that he might be 
enabled to go through with this great work, explain- 
ing in a parenthesis, ' It will be my greatest,** and con- 
cluding, ' Bless its commencement, its progress, its con- 
clusion, and its effect, for the sake of the intellectual 
elevation of my great and glorious country.' 

In May 1830, Haydon was back again in the King's 
Bench, Avhere he had begun to feel quite at home. He 
presented yet another of his innumerable petitions to 
Parliament in favour of Government encouragement of 
historical painting, through Mr. Agar Ellis, but as the 
ministry showed no desire to encourage this particular his- 
torical painter, he passed through the Bankruptcy Court, 
54 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

and returned to his family on the 20th of July. During 
his period of detention, George iv. had died, and 
Haydon has the following comment on the event : — 
'Thus died as thoroughbred an Englishman as ever 
existed in this country. He admired her sports, gloried 
in her prejudices, had confidence in her bottom and 
spirit, and to him alone is the destruction of Napoleon 
owing, I have lost in him my sincere admirer ; and had 
not his wishes been continually thwarted, he would have 
given me ample and adequate employment."" 

Although Haydon had regained his freedom, his chance 
of maintaining himself and his rapidly increasing family 
by his art seemed as far away as ever. By October 15th 
he is at his wits' end again, and writes in his Journal : 
' The harassings of a family are really dreadful. Two 
of my children are ill, and Mary is nursing. All night 
she was attending to the sick and hushing the suckling, 
with a consciousness that our last shilling was going. I 
got up in the morning bewildered — Xenophon hardly 
touched — no money — butcher impudent — all tradesmen 
insulting. I took up my private sketch-book and two 
prints of Napoleon (from a small picture of ' Napoleon 
musing at St. Helena') and walked into the city. Hughes 
advanced me five guineas on the sketch-book ; I sold my 
prints, and returned home happy with £8, 4s. in my 
pocket. . . . (25th) Out selling my prints. Sold enough 
for maintenance for the week. Several people looked 
hard at me with my roll of prints, but I feel more 
ashamed in borrowing money than in honestly selling 
my labours. It is a pity the nobility drive me to this 
by their neglect.' 

In December came another stroke of good-luck. Sir 
Robert Peel called at the studio, and gave the artist a 

55 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

commission to paint, on a larger scale, a replica of his 
small sketch of 'Napoleon at St. Helena."" Unluckily, 
there was a misunderstanding about the price. Peel 
asked how much Haydon charged for a whole length 
figure, and was told a hundred pounds, which was the 
price of an ordinary portrait. Taking this to be the 
charge for the Napoleon, he paid no more. Haydon, 
who considered the picture well worth £500, was bitterly 
disappointed, and took no pains to conceal his feelings. 
Peel afterwards sent him an extra thirty pounds, but the 
subject remained a grievance to Haydon for the rest of 
his life, and Peel^ who had intended to do the artist a 
good turn, was so annoyed by his complaints, that he 
never gave him another commission. The Napoleon, 
though its exhibition was not a success, was one of 
Haydon's most popular pictures, and the engraving is 
well known. Wordsworth admired it exceedingly, and 
on June 12, sent the artist the 'Sonnet to B. R. 
Haydon, composed on seeing his picture of Napoleon 
in the island of St. Helena,"" beginning : 

' Haydon ! let worthier judges praise the skill.' 

The close of this year was a melancholy period to poor 
Haydon. He lost his little daughter, Fanny, and his 
third son, Alfred, was gradually fading away. Out of 
eight children born to this most affectionate of fathers, 
no fewer than five died in infancy from suffusion of the 
brain, due, it was supposed, to the terrible mental dis- 
tresses of their mother. ' I can remember,"* Avrites 
Frederick Haydon, one of the three survivors, 'the 
roses of her sunken cheeks fading away daily with 
anxiety and grief. My father, who was passionately 
attached to both wife and children, suffered the tortures 
56 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

of the damned at the sight before him. His sorrow 
over the deaths of his children was something more 
than human. I remember watching him as he hung 
over his daughter Georgiana, and over his dying boy 
Harry, the pride and delight of his life. Poor fellow, 
how he cried ! and he went into the next room, and 
beating his head passionately on the bed, called upon 
God to take him and all of us from this dreadful world. 
The earliest and most painful death was to be preferred 
to our life at that time.' 

By dint of borrowing in every possible quarter, gener- 
ally at forty per cent, interest, and inducing his patrons 
to take shares in his Xenophon, Haydon managed to 
get through the winter, though his children were often 
without stockings. William iv. consented to place his 
name at the head of the subscribers"' list, and Goethe 
wrote a flattering letter, expressing his desire to take 
a ticket for the ' very valuable painting,** and assuring 
the artist that ' my soul has been elevated for many 
years by the contemplation of the important pictures 
(the cartoons from the Elgin Marbles) formerly sent to 
me, which occupy an honourable station in my house.^ 
Xenophon was exhibited in the spring of 1832 without 
attracting much attention, the whole nation being en- 
grossed with the subject of Reform. Haydon, though 
a high Tory by birth and inclination, was an ardent 
champion of the Bill, as he had been for that of Catholic 
Emancipation. His brush was once more exchanged for 
the pen, and he not only poured out his thoughts upon 
Reform in his Journal, but wrote several letters on the 
subject to the Times, which he considered the most 
wonderful compositions of the kind that had ever been 
penned. After the passing of the Bill he congratulates 

57 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

himself upon having contributed to the grand result, and 
adds : ' When my colours have faded, my canvas decayed, 
and my body has mingled with the earth, these glorious 
letters, the best things I ever wrote, will awaken the 
enthusiasm of my countrymen. I thanked God I lived 
in such a time, and that he gifted me with talent to 
serve the great cause.' 

On reading the account of the monster meeting of the 
Trades Unions at Newhall Hill, Birmingham, it occurred 
to Haydon that the moment when the vast concourse 
joined in the sudden prayer offered up by Hugh Hutton, 
would make a fine subject for a picture. Accordingly, 
he wrote to Hutton, and laid the suggestion before him. 
The Birmingham leaders were attracted by the idea, and 
the picture was begun, but support of a material kind 
was not forthcoming, and the scheme had to be abandoned. 
Lord Grey then suggested that Haydon should paint a 
picture of the great Reform Banquet, which was to be 
held in the Guildhall on July 11. The proposal was 
exactly to the taste of the public-spirited artist, who 
saw fame and fortune beckoning to him once more, and 
fancied that his future was assured. He was allowed 
every facility on the great day, breakfasted and dined 
witli the Committee at the Guildhall, was treated 
with distinction by the noble guests, many of whom 
sent to take wine with him as he sat at work, and in 
short, to quote his own words, 'I was an object of great 
distinction without five shillings in my pocket — and this 
is life ! ' 

Lord Grey, on seeing Haydon's sketches of the Ban- 
quet, gave him a commission for the picture at a price of 
d£^500, half of which he paid down at once, and thus 
saved the painter from the ruin that was again impend- 
58 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

ing. Then followed a period of triumphant happiness. 
The leading men of the Liberal party sat for their 
heads, and Haydon had the longed-for opportunity of 
pressing upon them his views about the public encourage- 
ment of art by means of grants for the decoration of 
national buildings. Although it does not appear that 
he made a single convert, he was quite contented for the 
time being with the ready access to ministers and noble- 
men that the occasion afforded him, and his Journal is 
filled with expressions of his satisfaction. We hear of 
Lord Palmerston's good-humoured elegance. Lord Lans- 
downe's amiability. Lord Jeffrey's brilliant conversation, 
and, most delightful of all, Lord Melbourne's frank, 
unaffected cordiaHty. Melbourne, it appears, enjoyed his 
sittings, for he asked many questions about Hazlitt, 
Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Shelley, and highly appre- 
ciated Haydon's anecdotes. Needless to add, he did not 
allow himself to be bored by the artist's theories. 

The sittings for the Reform picture continued through 
1833, and the early part of 1834. Haydon was kept in 
full employment, but domestic sorrows marred his satis- 
faction in his interesting work. In less than twelve 
months, he lost two sons, Alfred and Harry, the latter 
a child of extraordinary promise. ' The death of this 
beautiful boy,' he writes, ' has given my mind a blow 
I shall never effectually recover. I saw him buried 
to-day, after passing four days sketching his dear head 
in his coffin — his beautiful head. What a creature ! 
With a brow like an ancient god ! ' In August Haydon 
was arrested again, and hurried away for a day and 
night of torture, during which, he confesses, he was 
very near putting an end to himself; but advances from 
the Duke of Cleveland and Mr. Ellice brought him 

59 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

release, and in a few hours he was at home again, ' as 
happy and as hard at work as ever."" 

In April 1834, the Reform picture was exhibited, but 
the public was not interested, and Hay don lost a con- 
siderable sum over the exhibition. The price of the 
commission had long since gone to quiet the clamours 
of his creditors. On May 12 he writes : ' It is really 
lamentable to see the effect of success and failure on 
people of fashion. Last year, all was hope, exulta- 
tion, and promise with me. My door was beset, my 
house besieged, my room inundated. It was an absolute 
fight to get in to see me paint. Well, out came the 
work — the public felt no curiosity — it failed, and my 
door is deserted, no horses, no carriages. Now for 
executions, insults, misery, and wretchedness.' Then 
follows the old story. ' June 7. — Mary and I in agony 
of mind. All my Italian books, and some of my best 
historical designs, are gone to a pawnbroker's. She 
packed up her best gowns and the children's, and I 
drove away with what cost me 0C4O, and got £4^. The 
state of degradation, humiliation, and pain of mind in 
which I sat in that dingy back-room is not to be 
described.' 

Haydon now began a picture of ' Cassandra and 
Agamemnon,' and in July he received a commission to 
finish it for the Duke of Sutherland, who had more 
than once saved him from ruin. On this occasion the 
Duke's advances barely sufficed to stave off disaster. 
Studies, prints, clothes, and lay-figures were pawned 
to pay for the expenses of the work, and on October 
comes the entry : ' Directly after the Duke's letter came 
with its enclosed cheque, an execution was put in for 
the taxes. I made the man sit for Cassandra's hand, 
60 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

and put on a Persian bracelet. When the broker came 
for his money, he burst out laughing. There was the 
fellow, an old soldier, pointing in the attitude of 
Cassandra — upright and steady as if on guard. Lazarus"* 
head was painted just after an arrest ; Eucles was finished 
from a man in possession ; the beautiful face in Xenophon, 
after a morning spent in begging mercy of lawyers; and 
now Cassandra's head was finished in an agony not to 
be described, and her hand completed from a brokers 
man.' 



PAUT III 

On October 16, 1834, the Houses of Parliament were 
burned down. ' Good God ! ' writes Haydon, ' I am just 
returned from the terrific burning of the Houses of Parlia- 
ment. Mary and I went in a cab, and drove over the 
bridge. From the bridge it was sublime. We alighted, 
and went into a public-house, which was full. The feel- 
ing among the people was extraordinary — ^jokes and 
radicalism universal. . . . The comfort is that there is 
now a better prospect of painting the House of Lords. 
Lord Grey said there was no intention of taking the 
tapestry down ; little did he think how soon it would go.' 
Haydon's hopes now rose high. For many years, as we 
have seen, he had been advocating, in season and out of 
season, the desirability of decorating national buildings 
with heroic paintings by native artists, and, with 
the need for new Houses of Parliament, it seemed as 
if at last his cause might triumph. Once more he 
attacked the good-humoured but unimpressionable Lord 

61 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

Melbourne, and presented another petition to Parliament 
through Lord Morpeth. But in any case it would be 
years before the new buildings were ready for decoration, 
and in the meantime he would have been entirely out of 
employment if his long-suffering landlord had not allowed 
him to paint off a debt with a picture of ' Achilles at the 
Court of Lycomedes."' 

In the summer of this year Mr. Ewart obtained his 
Select Committee to inquire into the best means of extend- 
ing a knowledge of the arts and the principles of design 
among the people ; and further, to inquire into the con- 
stitution of the Royal Academy, and the effects produced 
thereby. Haydon, overjoyed at such a sign of progress, 
determined to aid the inquiry by giving a lecture on the 
subject at the London Mechanics' Institute, under the 
auspices of Dr. Birkbeck. The lecture was a success, for 
Haydon's natural earnestness and enthusiasm enabled 
him to interest and impress an audience, and Dr. Birk- 
beck assured him that he had made a ' hit.' This was 
the beginning of his career as a lecturer, by which for 
several years he earned a small but regular income. But 
meanwhile ruin was again staring him in the face. On 
September 26 he writes : ' The agony of my necessities 
is really dreadful. For this year I have principally 
supported myself by the help of my landlord, and by 
pawning everything of value I have left. . . , Lay awake 
in misery. Threatened on all sides. Doubtful whether 
to apply to the Insolvent Court to protect me, or let ruin 
come. Improved the picture, and not having a shilling, 
sent out a pair of my spectacles, and got five shillings 
for the day. (29th) Sent the tea-urn off the table, and 
got ten shillings for the day. Shall call my creditors 
together. In God I trust." 
62 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

The meeting of the creditors took place, and Haydon 
persuaded them to grant him an extension of time until 
June, 1836. Thus relieved from immediate anxiety he 
set to work on liis picture with renewed zest. The most 
remarkahle trait about him, observes his son Frederick, 
was his sanguine buoyancy of spirits. ' Nothing ever 
depressed him long. He w^as the most persevering, 
indomitable man I ever met. With us at home he was 
always confident of doing better next year. But that 
next year never came, . . . Blest as he was with that 
peculiar faculty of genius for overcoming difficulties, he 
might have found life tame without them. I remember 
his saying once, he was not sure he did not relish ruin as 
a source of increased activity of mind.' But the struggle 
had begun to tell upon his powers, if not upon his spirits, 
and ' he was now painting pictures for bread ; repeating 
himself; despatching a work in a few days that in better 
times he would have spent months over; ready to paint 
small things, since great ones would not sell ; fighting 
misery at the point of his brush, and obliged to eke out 
a livelihood by begging and borrowing, in default of 
worse expedients such as bills and cognovits. A less 
elastic temperament and a less vigorous constitution 
would have broken down in one year of such a fight, 
Haydon kept it up for ten.' 

The first half of 1836 went by in the usual struggle, 
and in September Haydon was thrown into prison for 
the fourth time. On November 17 he passed through 
the Insolvency Court, and on the following Sunday he 
records : ' Went to church, and returned thanks with all 
my heart and soul for the great mercies of God to me 
and my family during my imprisonment. . . . (29th) 
Set my palette to-day, the first time these eleven weeks 

63 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

and three days. I relished the oil; could have tasted 
the colour ; rubbed my cheeks with the brushes, and 
kissed the palette. Ah, could I be let loose in the House 
of Lords ! ' In the absence of commissions, he now turned 
to lecturing as a means of support. He lectured in Leeds, 
Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, as well as in 
London, and did jrood service bv agitating for the estab- 
lishment of local schools of design, and by arousing in 
the minds of the wealthy middle classes some faint 
appreciation of the claims of art. 

A valuable result of these lectures was the extension 
of Haydon's acquaintance among the shrewd merchant 
princes of the north, who recognised his artistic sincerity, 
and were inclined to hold out to him a helping hand. 
Through the influence of Mr. Lowndes, a Liverpool art- 
patron, Haydon received a commission to paint a picture 
of ' Christ blessing Little Children,' for the Blind Asylum 
at Liverpool, at a price of £4<00. So elated was he at 
this unexpected piece of good fortune that, with charac- 
teristic sanguineness, he seems to have thought that all 
his troubles were at an end for ever. Even his pious 
dependence on heavenly support diminished with his 
freedom from care, and he notes in a Sunday entry : 
' Went to church, but prosperity, though it makes me 
grateful, does not cause me such perpetual religious 
musings as adversity. When on a precipice, where 
nothing but God's protection can save me, I delight in 
religious hope, but I am sorry to say my religion ever 
dwindles miless kept alive by risk of ruin. My piety 
is never so intense as when in a prison, and my grati- 
tude never so much alive as when I have just escaped 
from one."* 

The year 1838 passed in comparative peace and comfort. 
64 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

The picture for the asylum was finished about the end of 
August, when Haydon congratulated his Maker on the 
fact that he (Haydon) had paid his rent and taxes, laid 
in his coals for the winter, and enjoyed health, happiness, 
and freedom from debt — fresh debt, be it understood — 
ever since this commission. Going down to Liverpool to 
hang his work, it was proposed to him by Mr. Lowndes 
that he should paint a picture of the Duke of Wellington 
on the field of Waterloo, twenty years after the battle. 
This was a subject after Haydon's own heart, for the Duke 
had always been his ideal hero, his king among men. Over- 
flowing with pride and delight, he prays that Providence 
will so bless this new commission that ' the glorious city 
of Liverpool may possess the best historical picture, and 
the grandest effort of my pencil in portraiture. Inspired 
by history, I fear not making it the grandest thing.' 

The Liverpool committee wrote to the Duke, to ask if 
he would consent to give sittings to Haydon, and received 
a promise that he would sit for his head as soon as time 
could be found. Meanwhile, Haydon set to work upon 
the horse, which was copied from portraits of Copenhagen. 
While he was thus engaged, D'Orsay called at the studio, 
and bestowed advice and criticism upon the artist, which, 
for once, was thankfully received. Haydon relates how 
D'Orsay ' took my brush in his dandy glove, which made 
my heart ache, and lowered the hind-quarters by bring- 
ing over a bit of the sky. Such a dress ! white greatcoat, 
blue satin cravat, hair oiled and curling, hat of the 
primest curve, gloves scented with eau-de-Cologne, prim- 
rose in tint, skin in tightness. In this prime of dandyism, 
he took up a nasty, oily, dirty hog-tool, and immortalised 
Copenhagen by touching the sky. I thought after he 
was gone, " This won't do — a Frenchman touch Copen- 
E 65 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

hagen ! " So out I rubbed all he had touched, and 
modified his hints myself.' 

As there was no chance of the Duke's being able to sit 
at this time, owing to the pressure of public business, 
Haydon made a flying visit to Brussels, in order to get 
local colour for the field of Waterloo. A few weeks 
later he was overjoyed at receiving an invitation to spend 
a few days at Walmer, when the Duke promised to give 
the desired sittings. On October 11, 1839, he went 
down 'by steam"* to Walmer, where he was heartily 
welcomed by his host. His Journal contains a long and 
minute account of his visit, from which one or two anec- 
dotes may be quoted. Haydon's fellow-guests were Sir 
Astley Cooper, Mr. Arbuthnot, and Mr. Booth. The 
first evening the conversation turned, among other topics, 
upon the Peninsular War. ' The Duke talked of the 
want of fuel in Spain — of what the troops suffered, and 
how whole houses, so many to a division, were pulled 
down, and paid for, to serve as fuel. He said every 
Englishman who has a house goes to bed at night. He 
found bivouacking was not suitable to the character of 
the English soldier. He got drunk, and lay down under 
any hedge, and discipline was destroyed. But when he 
introduced tents, every soldier belonged to his tent, and, 
drunk or sober, he got to it before he went to sleep. I 
said, " Your grace, the French always bivouac." " Yes," 
he replied, "because French, Spanish, and all other nations 
lie anywhere. It is their habit. They have no homes."' 

The next morning, after his return from hunting, the 
Duke gave a first sitting of an hour and a half. ' I hit 
his grand, manly, upright expression,' writes Haydon. 
' He looked like an eagle of the gods who had put on 
human shape, and got silvery with age and service. . . . 
66 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

I found that to imagine he could not go through any 
duty raised the lion. " Does the light hurt your grace''s 
eyes ? " " Not at all," and he stared at the light as much 
as to say, " I '11 see if you shall make me give in, Signor 
Light." 'Twas a noble head. I saw nothing of that 
peculiar expression of mouth the sculptors give him, 
bordering on simpering. His colour was beautiful and 
fleshy, his lips compressed and energetic."* The next 
day, being Sunday, there was no sitting, but Haydon 
was charmed at sharing a pew with his hero, and deeply 
moved by the simplicity and humility with which he 
followed the service. ' Arthur Wellesley in the village 
church of Walmer,"' he writes, ' was more interesting to 
me than at the last charge of the Guards at Waterloo, 
or in all the glory and paraphernalia of his entry into 
Paris.' 

It is probable that the Duke was afraid of being 
attacked by Haydon on the burning question of a State 
grant for the encouragement of historical painting, a 
subject about which he had received and answered many 
lengthy letters, for on each evening, when there was no 
party, he steadily read a newspaper, the Standard on 
Saturday, and the Spectator on Sunday, while his guest 
watched him in silent admiration. On the Monday 
morning, the hero came in for another sitting, looking 
extremely worn, his skin drawn tight over his face, his 
eyes watery and aged, his head slightly nodding. ' How 
altered from the fresh old man after Saturday's hunting,' 
says Haydon. ' It affected me. He looked like an aged 
eagle beginning to totter from its perch.' A second 
sitting in the afternoon concluded the business, and early 
next morning Haydon left for town. ' It is curious,' he 
comments, ' to have known thus the two great heads of 

67 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

the two great parties, the Duke and Lord Grey. I 
prefer the Duke infinitely. He is more manly, has no 
vanity, is not deluded by any flattery or humbug, and is 
in every way a grander character, though Lord Grey is 
a fine, amiable, venerable, vain man."" 

During the remainder of the year, Haydon worked 
steadily, and finished his picture. On December 2 he 
notes : ' It is now twenty-seven years since I ordered my 
Solomon canvas. I was young — twenty-six. The whole 
world was against me. I had not a farthing. Yet I 
remember the delight with which I mounted my deal 
table and dashed it in, singing and trusting in God, as I 
always do. When one is once imbued with that clear 
heavenly confidence, there is nothing like it. It has 
carried me through everything. I think my dearest Mary 
has not got it ; I do not think women have in general. 
Two years ago I had not a farthing, having spent it all 
to recover her health. She said to me, " What are we to 
do, my dear?" I replied, " Trust in God." There was 
something like a smile on her face. The very next day 
came the order for dC^OO from Liverpool, and ever since 
I have been employed."* Alas, poor Mary ! who had been 
chiefly occupied in bearing children and burying them, 
that must have been rather a melancholy smile upon 
her faded face. 

During the first part of 1840, Haydon seems to have 
been chiefly engaged in lecturing, the only picture on the 
stocks being a small replica of his Napoleon Musing for 
the poet Rogers. In February he was enabled to carry 
out one of the dreams of his life, namely, the delivery 
of a series of lectures upon art in the Ashmolean Museum 
at Oxford, under the patronage of the Vice-Chancellor. 
Tlie experiment was a triumphant success, and he 
68 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

exclaims, with his usual pious fervour, 'O God, how 
grateful ought I to be at being permitted the dis- 
tinction of thus being the first to break down the 
barrier which has kept art begging to be heard at the 
Universities.' He describes the occasion as one of the 
four chief honours of his life, the other three being 
Wordsworth's sonnet, ' High is our calling,' the freedom 
of his native town, and a public dinner that was given 
in his honour at Edinburgh. On March 14 he arrived 
home, ' full of enthusiasm and expecting (like the Vicar 
of Wakefield) every blessing — expecting my dear Mary 
to hang about my neck, and welcome me after my 
victory ; when I found her out, not calculating I should 
be home till dinner. I then walked into town, and 
when I returned she was at home, and hurt that I did 
not wait, so this begat mutual allusions which were any- 
thing but loving or happy. So much for anticipations 
of human happiness ! ' 

On June 12, 1840, Haydon notes : ' Excessively excited 
and exhausted. I attended the great Convention of the 
Anti-Slavery Society at Freemasons' Hall. Last Wednes- 
day a deputation called on me from the Committee, say- 
ing they wished for a sketch of the scene. The meeting 
was very affecting. Poor old Clarkson was present, with 
delegates from America, and other parts of the world.' 
A few days later, Haydon breakfasted with Clarkson, 
and sketched him with 'an expression of indignant 
humanity.' In less than a week fifty heads were dashed 
in, the picture, when finished, containing no fewer than 
a hundred and thirty-eight ; in fact, as the artist re- 
marked, with a curious disregard of natural history, it 
was all heads, like a peacock's tail. Haydon took a 
malicious pleasure in suggesting to his sitters that he 

69 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

should place them beside the negro delegate ; this being 
his test of their sincerity. Thus he notes on June 30 : 
' Scobell called. I said, " I shall place you, Thompson, and 
the negro together." Now an abolitionist, on thorough 
principle, would have gloried in being so placed. He 
sophisticated immediately on the propriety of placing the 
negro in the distance, as it would have much greater 
effect. Lloyd Garrison comes to-day. I "11 try him, and 
this shall be my method of ascertaining the real heart. . . . 
Garrison met me directly. George Thompson said he saw 
no objection. But that was not enough. A man who 
wishes to place a negro on a level with himself must no 
longer regard him as having been a slave, and feel annoyed 
at sitting by his side.' A visit to Clarkson at Playford 
Hall, Ipswich, was an interesting experience. Clarkson 
told the story of his vision, and the midnight voice that 
said ' You have not done your work. There is America.'' 
Haydon had been a believer all his life in such spiritual 
communications, and declares, ' I have been so acted on 
from seventeen to fifty-five, for the purpose of reforming 
and refining my great country in art.' 

In 1841 the Fine Arts Committee appointed to con- 
sider the question of the decoration of the new Houses of 
Parliament, sat to examine witnesses, but Haydon was 
not summoned before them, a slight which he deeply felt. 
With an anxious heart he set about making experiments 
in fresco, and was astonished at what he regarded as his 
success in this new line of endeavour. During the past 
year, the Anti-Slavery Convention picture, and one or 
two small commissions, had kept his head above water, 
but now the clouds were beginning to gather again, his 
difficulties being greatly increased by the fact that he 
had two sons to start in the world. The eldest, Frank, 
70 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

had been apprenticed, at his own wish, to an engineering 
firm, but tiring of his chosen profession, he desired to 
take orders, and, as a university career was considered a 
necessary preliminary to this course, he was entered at 
Caius College, Cambridge. The second son, Frederick, 
Haydon fitted out for the navy, and in order to meet 
these heavy extra expenses, he was compelled to part 
with his copyright of the ' Duke at Waterloo ' for a 
wholly inadequate sum. 

In the spring of 1842 the Fine Arts Commission issued 
a notice of the conditions for the cartoon competition, 
intended to test the capacity of native artists for the 
decoration of the House of Lords. The joy with which 
Haydon welcomed this first step towards the object 
which he had been advocating throughout the whole of 
his working life, was marred by the painful misgiving 
that he would not be allowed to share the fruits of 
victory. When he had first begun his crusade, he had 
felt himself without a rival in his own branch of art, not 
one of his contemporaries being able to compete with 
him in a knowledge of anatomy, in strength of imagina- 
tion, or in the power of working on a grand scale. But 
now he was fifty-six years old, there were younger men 
coming on who had been trained in the principles of his 
own school, and he was painfully aware that he had made 
many enemies in high places. Still, in spite of all fore- 
bodings, he continued his researches in fresco-painting, 
and wrote vehement letters to the papers, protesting 
against the threatened employment of Cornelius and 
other German artists. 

During this year Haydon was working intermittently 
at two or three large pictures, ' Alexander conquering the 
Lion,"" ' Curtius leaping into the Gulf,' and the ' Siege of 

71 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

Saragossa,"' for the days were long past when one grand 
composition occupied him for six years. That the wolf 
was once again howling at the door is evidenced by 
the entry for February 6. ' I got up yesterday, after 
lying awake for several hours with all the old feelings of 
torture at want of money. A bill coming due of d£*44 
for my boy Frank at Caius. Three commissions for 
d£'700 put off till next year. My dear Mary's health 
broken up. ... I knew if my debt to the tutor of Caius 
was not paid, the mind of my son Frank would be 
destroyed, from his sensitiveness to honour and right. 
As he is now beating third-year men, I dreaded any 
check."* In these straits he hastily painted one or two 
small pot-boilers, borrowed, deferred, pawned his wife's 
watch, and had the satisfaction of bringing his son home 
' crowned as first-prize man in mathematics.** For one 
who was in the toils of the money-lenders, who was only 
living from hand to mouth, and who had never made an 
investment in his life, to give his son a university career, 
must be regarded, according to individual feeling, either 
as a proof of presumptuous folly or of childlike trust in 
Providence. 

As soon as his pictures were off his hands, Haydon 
began his competition cartoons of ' The Curse of Adam 
and Eve,' and ' The Entry of Edward the Black Prince 
and King John into London.' He felt that it was beneath 
his dignity as a painter of recognised standing to compete 
with young unknown men who had nothing to lose, but 
in his present necessities the chance of winning one of 
the money prizes was not to be neglected. In the absence 
of any lucrative employment he was only able to carry 
on his work by pawning his lay-figure, and borrowing 
off his butterman. Small wonder that he exclaims : ' The 
72 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

greatest curse that can befall a father in England is to 
have a son gifted with a passion and a genius for high 
art. Thank God with all my soul and all my nature, 
my children have witnessed the harrowing agonies under 
which I have ever painted, and the very name of paint- 
ing, the very thought of a picture, gives them a hideous 
taste in their mouths. Thank God, not one of my boys, 
nor my girl, can draw a straight line, even with a ruler, 
much less without one."" 

In the course of this year Haydon began a corre- 
spondence with Miss Barrett, afterwards Mrs. Browning, 
with whom he was never personally acquainted, though 
he knew her through her poems, and through the allu- 
sions to her in the letters of their common friend. Miss 
Mitford. The paper friendship flourished for a time, 
and Haydon, who was a keen judge of character, recog- 
nised that here was a little Donna Quixote whose chivalry 
could be depended on in time of trouble. More than 
once, when threatened with arrest, he sent her paintings 
and manuscripts, of which she took charge with sublime 
indifference to the fact that by so doing she might be 
placing herself within reach of the arm of the law. One 
of the pictures that were placed in her guardianship was 
an unfinished portrait of ' Wordsworth musing upon 
Helvellyn."* Miss Barrett was inspired by this work with 
the sonnet beginning : 

' Wordsworth upon Helvellyn ! Let the cloud 
Ebb audibly along the mountain wind ' ; 

and concluding with the fine tribute : 

^A vision free 
And noble, Haydon, hath thine art released. 
No portrait this with academic air. 
This is the poet and his poetry.' 

73 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

The year 1843 brought, as Haydon's biographer points 
out, 'the consummation of what he had so earnestly 
fought for, a competition of native artists to prove their 
capability for executing great monumental and decorative 
works ; but with this came his own bitter disappointment 
at not being among the successful competitors. In all 
his struggles up to this point, Haydon had the consola- 
tion of hope that better times were coming. But now 
the good time for art was at hand, and he was passed 
over. The blow fell heavily — indeed, I may say, was 
mortal. He tried to cheat himself into the belief that 
the old hostile influences to which he attributed all his 
misfortunes, had been working here also, and that he 
should yet rise superior to their malice. He would not 
admit to himself that his powers were impaired — that he 
was less fit for great achievements in his art than he 
had been when he painted Solomon and Lazarus. But 
if he held this opinion, he held it alone. It was apparent 
to all, even to his warmest friends, that years of harass, 
humiliation, distraction, and conflict had enfeebled his 
energies, and led him to seek in exaggeration the effect 
he could no longer attain by well-measured force. His 
restless desire to have a hand in all that was projected 
for art, had wearied those in authority. He had shown 
himself too intractable to follow, and he had not 
inspired that confidence which might have given him a 
right to lead.' 

Although Haydon loudly proclaimed his conviction 
that, in face of the hostility against him, his cartoons 
would not be successful, even though they were as perfect 
as Raphael's, yet it is obvious that he had not altogether 
relinquished hope. In a letter to his old pupil, Eastlake, 
who was secretary to the Fine Arts Commission, he says : 
74 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

*I appeal to the Royal Commission, to the First Lord, 
to you the secretary, to Barry the architect, if I ought 
not to be indulged in my hereditary right to do this, 
viz., that when the houses are ready, cartoons done, 
colours mixed, and all at their posts, I shall be allowed, 
employed or not employed, to take the brush, and dip into 
the first colour, and put the first touch on the first 
intonaco. If that is not granted, I '11 haunt every noble 
Lord and you, till you join my disturbed spirit on the 
banks of the Styx/ 

On June 1 Haydon placed his two cartoons in West- 
minster Hall, and thanked his God that he had lived to 
see that day, adding with unconscious blasphemy, ' Spare 
my life, O Lord, until I have shown thy strength unto 
this generation, thy power unto that which is to come.** 
The miracle for which he had secretly hoped, while 
declaring his certainty of failure, did not happen. On 
June 27 he heard from Eastlake that his cartoons were 
not among those chosen for reward. Half stunned by 
the blow, anticipated though it had been, he makes but 
few comments on the news in his Journal, and those are 
written in a composed and reasonable tone. ' I went to 
bed last night in a decent state of anxiety,' he observes. 
' It has given a great shock to my family, especially to 
my dear boy, Frank, and revived all the old horrors of 
arrest, execution, and debt. It is exactly what I expected, 
and is, I think, intentional. ... I am wounded, and 
being ill from confinement, it shook me. {July \si) A 
day of great misery. I said to my dear love, " I am not 
included." Her expression was a study. She said, " We 
shall be ruined." I looked up my letters, papers, and 
Journals, and sent them to my dear vEschylus Barrett. I 
burnt loads of private letters, and prepared for execu- 

75 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

tions. Seven pounds was raised on my daughter's and 
Mary''s dresses.' 

The three money prizes were awarded to Armitage, 
Cope, and Watts, but it was announced that another 
competition, in fresco, would be held the following year, 
when the successful competitors would be intrusted with 
the decoration of the House of Lords. Haydon did not 
enter for this competition, but, as will presently appear, 
he refused to allow that he was beaten. On September 4 
he removed his cartoons from Westminster Hall, with 
the comment : ' Thus ends the cartoon contest ; and as 
the very first inventor and beginner of this mode of 
rousing the people when they were pronounced incapable 
of relishing refined works of art without colour, I am 
deeply wounded at the insult inflicted. These Journals 
witness under what trials I began them — how I called on 
my Creator for His blessing — how I trusted in Him, and 
how I have been degraded, insulted, and harassed, O 
Lord ! Thou knowest best. I submit,"' 

During the year Haydon had finished his picture of 
' Alexander and the Lion,' which he considered one of his 
finest works, though the British Gallery declined to hang 
it, and no patron offered to buy it. He had also painted 
for bread and cheese innumerable small replicas of 
* Napoleon at St. Helena ' and the ' Duke at Waterloo ' for 
five guineas apiece. By the beginning of 1844 his spirits 
had outwardly revived, thanks to the anodyne of incessant 
labour, and he writes almost in the old buoyant vein : 
' Another day of work, God be thanked ! Put in the sea 
[in " Napoleon at St. Helena"]; a delicious tint. How 
exquisite is a bare canvas, sized alone, to work on ; how 
the slightest colour, thin as water, tells ; how it glitters 
in body ; how the brush flies — now here — now there ; it 
76 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

seems as if face, hands, sky, thought, poetry, and expres- 
sion were hid in the handle, and streamed out as it 
touched the canvas. What magic ! what fire ! what 
unerring hand and eye ! what power ! what a gift of 
God ! I bow, and am grateful.'' On March 24 he 
came to the fatal decision to paint his own original 
designs for the House of Lords in a series of six large 
pictures, and exhibit them separately, a decision founded, 
as he believed, on supernatural inspiration. 'Awoke 
this morning,"* he writes, ' with that sort of audible whisper 
Socrates, Columbus, and Tasso heard ! " Why do you 
not paint your own designs for the House on your own 
foundation, and exhibit them ? " I felt as if there was no 
chance of my ever being permitted to do them else, 
without control also. I knelt up in my bed, and prayed 
heartily to accomplish them, whatever might be the 
obstruction. I will begin them as my next great works ; 
I feel as if they will be my last, and I think I shall then 
have done my duty. O God ! bless the beginning, 
progression, and conclusion of tliese six great designs to 
illustrate the best government to regulate without 
cramping the energies of mankind.' 

In July the frescoes sent in for competition were 
exhibited in Westminster Hall, and in the result six 
artists were commissioned to decorate the House of Lords, 
Maclise, Redgrave, Dyce, Cope, Horsley, and Thomas. 
' I see,"* writes Haydon, ' they are resolved that I, the 
originator of the whole scheme, shall have nothing to do 
with it; so I will (trusting in the great God who has 
brought me thus far) begin on my own inventions without 
employment.' The first of the series was ' Aristides hooted 
by the Populace,"* and the conditions under which it was 
painted are described in his annual review of the year''s 

77 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

work : ' I have painted a large Napoleon in four days and 
a half, six smaller different subjects, three Curtiuses, five 
Napoleons Musing, three Dukes and Copenhagens, George 
IV., and the Duke at Waterloo — half done Uriel — 
published my lectures — and settled composition of 
Aristides. I gave lectures at Liverpool, sometimes twice 
a day, and lectured at the Royal Institution. I have 
not been idle, but how much more I might have done ! ' 

In 1845 Hay don exhibited his picture of ' Uriel and 
Satan ' at the Academy, and ' after twenty-two years of 
abuse,' actually received a favourable notice in the Times. 
For the Uriel he was paid d£'200, but five other pictures 
remained upon his hands, their estimated value amounting 
to nearly a thousand pounds, and he was left to work at 
his Aristides with barely ten shillings for current expenses, 
and not a single commission in prospect. ' What a pity 
it is,' he observes, ' that a man of my order — sincerity, 
perhaps genius [in the Journal a private note is here 
inserted, " not perhaps ""], is not employed. What honour, 
what distinction would I not confer on my great country ! 
However, it is my destiny to perform great things, not 
in consequence of encouragement, but in spite of opposi- 
tion, and so let it be.' In the latter part of the year 
came one or two minor pieces of good fortune for which 
Haydon professed the profoundest gratitude, declaring 
that he was not good enough to deserve such blessings. 
The King of Hanover bought a Napoleon for ^200, and 
a pupil came, who paid a like sum as premium. His son, 
Frank, who had taken his degree, changed his mind again 
about his profession, and now ' shrank from the publicity 
of the pulpit.' Haydon applied to Sir Robert Peel for 
an appointment for the youth, and Peel, who seems to 
have shown the utmost patience and kindness in his 
78 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

relations with the unfortunate artist, at once offered a 
post in the Record Office at ofPSO a year, an offer wliich 
was gladly accepted. 

Thus relieved of immediate care, Haydon set to work 
on the second picture of his series, ' Nero playing the Lyre 
while Rome was burning/ The effect of his conception, 
as he foresaw it in his mind's eye, was so terrific that he 
'fluttered, trembled, and perspired like a woman, and 
was obliged to sit down.' Under all the anxiety, the 
pressure, and the disappointment of Hay don's life, it must 
be remembered that there were enormous compensations 
in the shape of days and hours of absorbed and satisfied 
employment, days and hours such as seldom fall to the 
lot of the average good citizen and solvent householder. 
The following entry alone is sufficient proof that Haydon, 
even in his worst straits, was almost as much an object of 
envy as of compassion : ' Worked with such intense 
abstraction and delight for eight hours, with five minutes 
only for kinch, that though living in the noisiest quarter 
of all London, I never remember hearing all day a single 
cart, carriage, knock, cry, bark of man, woman, dog, or 
child. When I came out into the sunshine I said to 
myself, " Why, what is all this driving about .'' " though it 
has always been so for the last twenty-two years, so 
perfectly, delightfully, and intensely had I been abstracted. 
If that be not happiness, what is ? ' 

Haydon had now staked all his hopes upon the 
exhibition in the spring of 1846 of the first two pictures 
in his series, ' Aristides ' and ' Nero.' If the public flocked 
to see them, if it accorded him, as he expected, its enthu- 
siastic support, he hoped that the Commission would be 
shamed into offering him public employment. If, on the 
other hand, the exhibition failed, he must have realised 

79 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

that he would be irretrievably ruined, with all his hopes 
for the future slain. Everything was to be sacrificed to 
this last grand effort. ' If I lose this moment for showing 
all my works,' he writes, ' it can never occur again. My 
fate hangs on doing as I ought, and seizing moments with 
energy. I shall never again have the opportunity of 
connecting myself with a great public commission by 
opposition, and interesting the public by the contrast. 
If I miss it, it will be a tide not taken at the flood.' 

By dint of begging and borrowing, the money was 
scraped together for the opening expenses of the exhibi- 
tion, and Haydon composed a sensational descriptive 
advertisement in the hope of attracting the public. The 
private view was on April 4, when it rained all day, 
and only four old friends attended. On April 6, 
Easter Monday, the public was admitted, but only 
twenty-one availed themselves of the privilege. For 
a few days Haydon went on hoping against hope that 
matters would improve, and that John Bull, in whose 
support he had trusted, would rally round him at last. 
But Tom Thumb was exhibiting next door, and the 
historical painter had no chance against the pigmy. 
The people rushed by in their thousands to visit Tom 
Thumb, but few stopped to inspect 'Aristides' or 
' Nero.' ' They push, they fight, they scream, they 
faint,' writes Haydon, ' they see my bills, my boards, my 
caravans, and don't read them. Their eyes are open, but 
their sense is shut. It is an insanity, a rabies, a madness, 
a furor, a dream. Tom Thumb had 12,000 people last 
week, B. R. Haydon 133| (the half a little girl). Ex- 
quisite taste of the English people ! . . . {May \Sth) I 
closed my exhibition this day, and lost dfe*]!!, 8s. lOd. 
No man can accuse me of showing less energy, less spirit, 
80 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

less genius than I did twenty-six years ago. I have not 
decayed, but the people have been corrupted. I am the 
same, they are not ; and I have suffered in consequence.'' 

In defiance of this shipwreck of all his hopes, and the 
heavy liabilities that hung about his neck, this indomit- 
able spirit began tlie third picture of his unappreciated 
series, 'Alfred and the First British Jury.' He had 
large sums to pay in the coming month, and only a few 
shillings in the house, with no commissions in prospect. 
He sends up passionate and despairing petitions that 
God will help him in his dreadful necessities, will raise 
him friends from sources invisible, and enable him to 
finish his last and greatest works. Appeals for help to 
Lord Brougham, the Duke of Beaufort, and Sir Robert 
Peel brought only one response, a cheque for .^SO from 
Peel, which was merely a drop in the ocean. Day by 
day went by, and still no commissions came in, no offers 
for any of the large pictures he had on hand. Haydon 
began to lose confidence in his ability to finish his series, 
and with him loss of self-confidence was a fatal sign. The 
June weather was hot, he was out of health, and unable to 
sleep at night, but he declined to send for a doctor. His 
brain grew confused, and at last even the power to work, 
that power which for him had spelt pride and happiness 
throughout his whole life, seemed to be leaving him. 

On June 16 he writes : ' I sat from two till five staring 
at my picture like an idiot, my brain pressed down by 
anxiety, and the anxious looks of my dear Mary and the 
children. . . . Dearest Mary, with a woman's passion, 
wishes me at once to stop payment, and close the whole 
thing. I will not. I will finish my six under the bless- 
ing of God, reduce my expenses, and hope His mercy 
will not desert me, but bring me through in health and 
F 81 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

vigour, gratitude and grandeur of soul, to the end/ The 
end was nearer than he thought, for even Haydon''s brave 
spirit could not battle for ever with adverse fate, and 
the collapse, when it came, was sudden. The last two or 
three entries in the Journal are melancholy reading. 

' June 18. — O God, bless me through the evils of this 
day. My landlord, Newton, called. I said, "I see a 
quarter's rent in thy face, but none from me." I 
appointed to-morrow night to see him, and lay before 
him every iota of my position. Good-hearted Newton ! 
I said, " Don't put in an execution." " Nothing of the 
sort," he replied, half hurt. I sent the Duke, Words- 
worth, dear Fred and Mary's heads to Miss Barrett to 
protect. I have the Duke's boots and hat, Lord Grey's 
coat, and some more heads. 

' ^Oth. — O God, bless us through all the evils of this 
day. Amen. 

' 9Ast. — Slept horribly. Prayed in sorrow, and got up 
in agitation. 

' 9J^nd. — God forgive me. Amen. 

FINIS 

OF 

B. R. HAYDON. 

' " Stretch me no longer on this rough worhl" — Lear.' 

This last entry was made between ten and eleven 
o'clock on the morning of June 22. Haydon had risen 
early, and gone out to a gunmaker's in Oxford Street, 
where he bought a pair of pistols. After breakfast, 
he asked his wife to go and spend the day with an old 
friend, and having affectionately embraced her, shut him- 
self in his painting-room. Mrs. Haydon left the house, 
82 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

and an hour later Miss Haydon went down to the studio, 
intending to try and console her father in his anxieties. 
She found him stretched on the floor in front of his 
unfinished picture of ' Alfred and the First Jury,"" a 
bullet-wound in his head, and a frightful gash across his 
throat. A razor and a small pistol lay by his side. On 
the table were his Journal, open at the last page, letters 
to his wife and children, his Avill, made that morning, and 
a paper headed : ' Last thoughts of B. R. Haydon ; 
half-past ten.' These few lines, with their allusions to 
Wellington and Napoleon, are characteristic of the man 
who had painted the two great soldiers a score of times, 
and looked up to them as his heroes and exemplars. 

' No man should use certain evil for probable good, 
however great the object,'' so they run. ' Evil is the pre- 
rogative of the Deity. Wellington never used evil if the 
good was not certain. Napoleon had no such scruples, and 
I fear the glitter of his genius rather dazzled me. But had 
I been encouraged, nothing but good would have come 
from me, because when encouraged I paid everybody. God 
forgive me the evil for the sake of the good. Amen.' 

This tragic conclusion to a still more tragic career 
created a profound sensation in society, and immense 
crowds followed the historical painter to his grave. Among 
all his friends, perhajjs few were more affected by his death 
than one who had never looked upon his face — his ' dear 
^Eschylus Barrett,' as he called her. Certain it is that, 
with the intuition of genius, Elizabeth Barrett under- 
stood, appreciated, and made allowances for the unhappy 
man more completely than was possible to any other of 
his contemporaries. Clear-sighted to his faults and 
weaknesses, her chivalrous spirit took up arms in defence 
of his conduct, even against the strictures of her poet- 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

lover. *The dreadful death of poor Mr. Haydon the 
artist,' she wrote to her friend Mrs. Martin, a few days 
after the event, ' has quite upset me. I thank God that 
I never saw him — poor gifted Haydon. . . . No artist is 
left behind with equal largeness of poetical conception. 
If the hand had always obeyed the soul, he would have 
been a genius of the first order. As it is, he lived on the 
slope of genius, and could not be steadfast and calm. 
His life was one long agony of self-assertion. Poor, poor 
Haydon ! See how the world treats those who try too 
openly for its gratitude. " Tom Thumb for ever "" over 
the heads of its giants.'' 

' Could any one — cmdd my own hand even have averted 
xohat has happened ? ' she wrote to Robert Browning on 
June 24, 1846. ' My head and heart have ached to-day 
over the inactive hand. But for the moment it was out 
of my power, and then I never fancied this case to be 
more than a piece of a continuous case, of a habit fixed. 
Two years ago he sent me boxes and pictures precisely 
so, and took them back again — poor, poor Haydon ! — 
as he will not this time. . . . Also, I have been told 
again and again (oh, never by you, my beloved) that to 
give money there, was to drop it into a hole in the ground. 
But if to have dropped it so, dust to dust, would have 
saved a living man — what then ? . . . Some day, when 
I have the heart to look for it, you shall see his last note. 
I understand now that there are touches of desperate 
pathos — but never could he have meditated self-destruc- 
tion while writing that note. He said he should write 
six more lectures — six more volumes. He said he was 
painting a new background to a picture which made him 
feel as if his soul had wings . . , and he repeated an old 
phrase of his, which I had heard from him often before, 
84 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

and which now rings hollowly to the ears of my memory — 
that he coulcMt and wouldii't die. Strange and dreadful !' 

Directly after Haydon's death a public meeting of his 
friends and patrons was held, at which a considerable 
sum was subscribed for the benefit of his widow and 
daughter. Sir Robert Peel, besides sending immediate 
help, recommended the Queen to bestow a small pension 
on Mrs. Hay don. The dead man"'s debts amomited to 
=£•3000, and his assets consisted chiefly of unsaleable 
pictures, on most of which his creditors had liens. In his 
will was a clause to the effect that ' I have manuscripts 
and memoirs in the possession of Miss Barrett, of 50 
Wimpole Street, in a chest, which I wish Longman to be 
consulted about. My memoirs are to 1820 ; my journals 
will supply the rest. The style, the individuality of 
Richardson, which I wish not curtailed by an editor.' 
Miss Mitford was asked to edit the Life, but felt herself 
unequal to the task, which was finally intrusted to 
Mr. Tom Taylor. 

Haydon's Memoirs, compiled from his autobiography, 
journals, and correspondence, appeared in 1853, the same 
year that saw the publication of Lord John Russell's 
Life of Thomas Moore. To the great astonishment of 
both critics and public, Haydon's story proved the more 
interesting of the two. ' Haydon's book is the work of 
the year,' writes Miss Mitford. 'It has entirely stopped 
the sale of Moore's, which really might have been written 
by a Court newspaper or a Court milliner.' Again, the 
Athena'imi, a more impartial witness, asks, 'Who would 
have thought that the Life of Haydon would turn out 
a more sterling and interesting addition to English 
biography than the Life of Moore ? ' But the highest 
testimony to the merits of the book as a human document 

85 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

comes from Mrs. Browning, who wrote to Miss Mitford 
X)n March 19, 1854, ' Oh, I have just been reading poor 
Haydon's biography. There is tragedy ! The pain of 
it one can hardly shake off. Surely, surely, wrong was 
done somewhere, when the worst is admitted of Haydon. 
For himself, looking forward beyond the grave, I seem to 
understand that all things, when most bitter, worked 
ultimate good to him, for that sublime arrogance of his 
would have been fatal perhaps to the moral nature, if 
further developed by success. But for the nation we had 
our duties, and we should not suffer our teachers and 
originators to sink thus. It is a book written in blood of 
the heart. Poor Haydon ! ' Mr. Taylor''s Life was 
supplemented in 1874 by Haydon's CoiTespondence and 
Table-talk, together with a Memoir written in a tone of 
querulous complaint, by his second son, Frederick, who, it 
may be noted, had been dismissed from the public service 
for publishing a letter to Mr. Gladstone, entitled Our 
Officials at the Home Office, and who died in the Bethlehem 
Hospital in 1886. His elder brother, Frank, committed 
suicide in 1887. 

On the subject of Haydon"'s merits as a painter the 
opinion of his contemporaries swung from one extreme to 
another, while that of posterity perhaps has scarcely 
allowed him such credit as was his due. It is certain 
that he was considered a youth of extraordinary promise 
by his colleagues, Wilkie, Jackson, and Sir George 
Beaumont, yet there were not wanting critics who declared 
that his early picture, ' Dentatus,"* was an absurd mass of 
vulgarity and distortion. Foreign artists who visited his 
studio urged him to go to Rome, where he was assured 
that patrons and pupils would flock round him ; while, 
on the other hand, he was described by a native critic (in 
86 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

the Quarterly Reviexv) as one of the most defective 
painters of the day, who had received more pecuniary 
assistance, more indulgence, more liberality, and more 
charity than any other artist ever heard of. But the 
best criticism of his powers, though it scarcely takes 
into account the gift of imagination which received so 
many tributes from the poets, is that contributed to 
Mr. Taylor's biography by Mr. Watts, R.A. 

' The characteristics of Haydon's art,' he writes, ' appear 
to me to be great determination and power, knowledge, 
and effrontery. . . . Hay don appears to have succeeded 
as often as he displays any real anxiety to do so ; but 
one is struck with the extraordinary discrepancy of 
different parts of the work, as though, bored by a fixed 
attention that had taken him out of himself, yet highly 
applauding the result, he had scrawled and daubed his 
brush about in a sort of intoxication of self-glory. . . . 
In Haydon's work there is not sufficient forgetfulness of 
self to disarm criticism of personality. His pictures are 
themselves autobiographical notes of the most interesting 
kind ; but their want of beauty repels, and their want of 
modesty exasperates. Perhaps their principal charac- 
teristic is lack of delicacy and refinement of execution.' 
While describing Haydon's touch as woolly, his surfaces 
as disagreeable, and his draperies as deficient in dignity, 
Mr. Watts admits that his expression of anatomy and 
general perception of form are the best by far that can 
be found in the English school. Haydon had looked 
forward in full confidence to the favourable verdict of 
posterity, and to an honourable position in the National 
Gallery for the big canvases that had been neglected by 
his contemporaries. It is not the least of life's little 
ironies that while not a single work of his now hangs in 

87 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

the National Gallery, his large picture of Curtius leaping 
into the Gulf occupies a prominent position in one of 
Gatti's restaurants.^ 

As a lecturer, a theoriser, and a populariser of his art, 
Haydon has just claims to grateful remembrance. 
Though driven to paint pot-boilers for the support of his 
family, he never ceased to preach the gospel of high art ; 
he was among the first to recognise and acclaim the tran- 
scendent merits of the Elgin Marbles; he rejoiced with a 
personal joy in the purchase of the Angerstein collection 
as the nucleus of a National Gallery ; he scorned the 
ignoble fears of some of his colleagues lest the newly- 
started winter exhibitions of old masters should injure 
their professional prospects ; he used his interest at Court 
to have Raphael's cartoons brought up to London for the 
benefit of students and public ; he advocated the estab- 
lishment of local schools of design, and, through his 
lectures and writings, helped to raise and educate the 
taste of his country. 

Haydon has painted his own character and tempera- 
ment in such vivid colours, that scarcely a touch need be 
added to the portrait. He was an original thinker, a 
vigorous writer, a keen observer, but from his youth up a 
disproportion was evident in the structure of his mind, 
that pointed only too clearly to insanity. His judgment, 
as Mr. Taylor observes, was essentially unsound in all 
matters where he himself was personally interested. His 
vanity blinded him throughout to the quality of his own 
work, the amount of influence he could wield, and the 

^ Three of Haydon's pictures, however, are the property of the nation. 
Two, the 'Lazarus' and 'May-day,' belong to the National Gallery, 
but have been lent to provincial galleries. One, the ' Christ in the 
Garden,' belongs to the South Kensington Museum, but has been stored 
away. 

88 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

extent of the public sympathy that he excited. He was 
essentially religious in temperament, though his religion 
was so assertive and egotistical in type that those who 
hold with Rosalba that where there is no modesty there 
can be no religion,^ might be inclined to deny its exist- 
ence. From the very outset of his career Haydon took 
up^the attitude of a missionary of high art in England — 
and therewith the expectation of being crowned and 
enriched as its Priest and King. He clung to the be- 
lief that a man who devoted himself to the practice of 
a high and ennobling art ought to be supported by a 
grateful country, or at least by generous patrons, and he 
could never be made to realise that Art is a stern and 
jealous mistress, who demands material sacrifices from 
her votaries in exchange for spiritual compensations. If 
a man desires to create a new era in the art of his country, 
he must be prepared to lead a monastic life in a garret ; 
but if, like Haydon, he allows himself a wife and eight 
children, and professes to be unable to live on five hun- 
dred a year, he must condescend to the painting of 
portraits and pot-boilers. The public cannot be forced 
to support what it neither understands nor admires, and, 
in a democratic state, the Government is bound to consult 
the taste of its masters. 

Haydon's financial embarrassments were perhaps the 
least of his trials. As has been seen, he had fallen into 
the hands of the money-lenders in early youth, and he 
had never been able to extricate himself from their 
clutches. But so many of his friends and colleagues — 
Godwin, Leigh Hunt, and Sir Thomas Lawrence among 
others — were in the same position, that Haydon must 

^ Rosalba said of Sir Godfrey Kneller, ' This man can have no religion, 
for he has no modesty.' 

89 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

have felt he was insolvent in excellent company. As long 
as he was able to keep himself out of prison and the 
bailiffs out of his house, he seems to have considered that 
his affairs were positively flourishing, and at their worst 
his financial difficulties alone would never have driven 
him to self-destruction. Mrs. Browning was surely right 
when she wrote : — ' The more I think the more I am 
inclined to conclude that the money irritation was merely 
an additional irritation, and that the despair, leading to 
revolt against life, had its root in disappointed ambition. 
The world did not recognise his genius, and he punished 
the world by withdrawing the light. . . . All the audacity 
and bravery and self-calculation, which drew on him 
so much ridicule, were an agony in disguise — he could 
not live without reputation, and he wrestled for it, 
struggled for it, kicked for it, forgetting grace of attitude 
in the pang. When all was vain he went mad and 
died. . . . Poor Haydon ! Think what an agony life 
was to him, so constituted ! — his own genius a clinging 
curse ! the fire and the clay in him seething and quench- 
ing one another ! — the man seeing maniacally in all men 
the assassins of his fame ! and with the whole world 
against him, struggling for the thing that was his life, 
through day and night, in thoughts and in dreams 
. . . struggling, stifling, breaking the hearts of the 
creatures dearest to him, in the conflict for which there 
was no victory, though he could not choose but fight it. 
Tell me if Laocoon's anguish was not as an infant's sleep 
compared to this.'' 

Haydon wrote his own epitaph, and this, which he, at 
least, believed to be an accurate summary of his misfor- 
tunes and their cause, may fitly close this brief outline of 
his troubled life : — 
90 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 

'Here 
LiETH THE Body 

OF 

BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON, 

An English Historical Painter, who, in a struggle to 
make the People, the Legislature, the Nobility, and the 
Sovereign of England give due dignity and rank to the 
highest Art, which has ever languished, and, until the 
Government interferes, ever will languish in England, 
fell a Victim to his ardour and his love of country, an 
evidence that to seek the benefit of your country by 
telling the Truth to Power, is a crime that can only be 
expiated by the ruin and destruction of the Man who is 
so patriotic and so imprudent. 

' He was born at Plymouth, 26th of January 1786, 
and died on the [22nd of June] 18[46], believing in 
Christ as the Mediator and Advocate of Mankind : — 

' " What various ills the Painter's life assail, 

Pride, Envy, Want, the Patron and the Jail."' 



91 



LADY MORGAN 

(SYDNEY OWENSON) 







:f4t^^^'7l'^e< 



LADY MORGAN 

(SYDNEY OWENSON) 

TART I 

' What/ asks Lady Morgan in her fragment of autobio- 
grapliy, ' what has a woman to do with dates ? Cold, 
false, erroneous dates ! Her poetical idiosyncrasy, calcu- 
lated by epochs, would make the most natural points of 
reference in a woman's auto])iographv.'' The matter-of- 
fact Saxon would hardly know how to set about calculat- 
ing a poetical idiosyncrasy by epochs, but our Celtic 
heroine was equal to the task ; at any rate, she abstained 
so carefully throughout her career from all unnecessary 
allusion to what she called ' vulgar eras,"* that the date 
of her birth remained a secret, even from her bitterest 
enemies. Her untiring persecutor, John Wilson Croker, 
declared that Sydney Owenson was born in 1775, while 
the Du'tlonarij of National Biography more gallantly gives 
the date as 1783, with a query. But as Sir Charles 
Morgan was born in the latter year, and as his wife 
owned to a few years' seniority, we shall probably be 
doing her no injustice if we place the important event 
between 1778 and 1780. 

Lady Morgan's detestation for dates was accompanied 
by a vivid imagination, an inaccurate memory, and a 

r 95 



LADY MORGAN 

constitutional inability to deal with hard facts. Hence, 
her biographers have found it no easy task to grapple 
with the details of her career, her own picturesque, high- 
coloured narrative being not invariably in accord with 
the prosaic records gathered from contemporary sources. 
For example, according to the plain, unvarnished state- 
ment of a Saxon chronicler. Lady Morgan's father was 
one Robert MacOwen, who was born in 1744, the son 
of poor parents in Connaught. He was educated at a 
hedge-school, and on coming to man's estate, obtained 
a situation as steward to a neighbouring landowner. 
But, having been inspired with an unquenchable passion 
for the theatre, he presently threw up his post, and 
through the influence of Goldsmith, a ' Connaught cousin,' 
he obtained a footing on the English stage. 

The Celtic version of this story, as dictated by Lady 
Morgan in her old age, is immeasurably superior, and at 
any rate deserves to be true. Early in the eighteenth 
century, so runs the tale, a hurling-match was held in 
Connaught, which was attended by all the gentry of the 
neighbourhood. The Queen of Beauty, who gave away 
the prizes, was Sydney Crofton Bell, granddaughter of 
Sir Malby Crofton of Longford House. The victor of 
the hurling-match was Walter MacOwen, a gentleman 
according to the genealogy of Connaught, but a farmer 
by position. Young, strong, and handsome, MacOwen, 
like Orlando, overthrew more than his enemies, with the 
result that presently there was an elopement in the neigh- 
bourhood, and an unpardonable mesalliance in the Crofton 
family. The marriage does not appear to have been a very 
happy one, since MacOwen continued to frequent all the 
fairs and hurling-matches of the country-side, but his wife 
consoled herself for his neglect by cultivating her musical 
96 



LADY MORGAN 

and poetical gifts. She composed Irish songs and melodies, 
and gained the title of Clasagh-na-Vallagh, or Harp of 
the Valley. Her only son Robert inherited his father's 
good looks and liis mother*'s artistic talents, and was 
educated by the joint efforts of the Protestant clergyman 
and the Roman Catholic priest. 

When the boy was about seventeen, a rich, eccentric 
stranger named Blake arrived to take possession of the 
Castle of Ardfry. The new-comer, who was a musical 
amateur, presently discovered that there was a young 
genius in the neighbourhood. Struck by the beauty 
of Robert MacOwen''s voice, Mr. Blake offered to take 
the youth into his own household, and educate him for 
a liberal profession, an offer that was joyfully accepted by 
Clasagh-na-Vallagh. The patron soon tired of Connaught, 
and carried off his jjrotege to London, where he placed 
him under Dr. Worgan, the famous blind organist of 
Westminster Abbey. At home, young MacOwen's 
duties were to keep his employer''s accounts, to carve 
at table, and to sing Irish melodies to his guests. He 
was taken up by his distant kinsman, Goldsmith, who 
introduced him to the world behind the scenes, and 
encouraged him in his aspirations after a theatrical 
career. 

Among the young Irishman's new acquaintances was 
Madame V^ Q\c\\s,e[, jnima donna of His Majesty's Theatre, 
and mother of the more celebrated Mrs. Billington. 
The lady occasionally studied her roles under Dr. Worgan, 
when MacOwen played the part of stage-lover, and, 
being of an inflammable disposition, speedily developed 
into a real one. This love-affair was the cause of a 
sudden reverse of fortune. During Mr. Blake's absence 
from town, Robert accompanied Madame Weichsel to 
G 97 



LADY MORGAN 

Vaiixhall, where she was engaged to sing a duet. Her 
professional colleague failing to appear, young MacOwen 
was persuaded to undertake the tenor part, which he 
did with pronounced success. But unfortunately Mr. 
Blake, who had returned unexpectedly from Ireland, 
was among the audience, and was angered beyond all 
forgiveness by this premature debut. When Robert 
went home, he found his trunks ready packed, and 
a letter of dismissal from his patron awaiting him. 
A note for .^300, which accompanied the letter, was 
returned, and the prodigal drove off to his cousin Gold- 
smith, who, with characteristic good-nature, took him 
in, and promised him his interest with the theatrical 
managers. 

According to Lady Morgan"'s account, Robert Owenson, 
as he now called himself in deference to the prevailing 
prejudice against both the Irish and the Scotch, was at 
once introduced to Garrick, and allowed to make his 
debut in the part of Tamerlane. But, from contemporary 
evidence, it is clear that he had gained some experience 
in the provinces before he made his first appearance on 
the London boards, when his Tamerlane was a decided 
failure. Garrick refused to allow him a second chance, 
but after further provincial touring, he obtained another 
London engagement, and appeared with success in such 
parts as Captain Macheath, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and 
Major CFlaherty. 

Owenson had been on the stage some years when 
he fell in love with Miss Jane Hill, the daughter of a 
respectable burgess of Shrewsbury. The worthy Mr. 
Hill refused his consent to his daughter's marriage with 
an actor, but the dashing jcune premie?; like his father 
before him, carried off his bride by night, and married 
98 



LADY MORGAN 

her at Lichfield before her irate parent could overtake 
them. Miss Hill was a Methodist by persuasion, and 
hated the theatre, though she loved her player. She 
induced her husband to renounce his profession for a 
time, and to appear only at concerts and oratorios. 
But the stage-fever was in his blood, and after a short 
retirement, we find him, in 1771, investing a part of 
his wife's fortune in a share in the Crow Street Theatre, 
Dublin, where he made his first appearance with great 
success in his favourite part of Major CFlaherty, one 
of the characters in Cumberland's comedy. The West 
Indian. He remained one of the pillars of this theatre 
until 1782, when Ryder, the patentee, became a bank- 
rupt. Owenson was then engaged by Richard Daly to 
perform at the Smock Alley Theatre, and also to fill the 
post of assistant-manager. 

By this time Sydney had made her appearance in the 
world, arriving on Christmas Day in some unspecified 
year. According to one authority she was born on ship- 
board during the passage from Holyhead to Dublin, but 
she tells us herself that she was born at her father's house 
in Dublin during a Christmas banquet, at which most of 
the leading wits and literary celebrities of the capital 
were present. The whole party was bidden to her 
christening a month later, and Edward Lysaght, equally 
famous as a lawyer and an improvisatore, undertook to 
make the necessary vows in her name. In spite of this 
brilliant send-off, Sydney was not destined to bring good 
fortune to her father's house. A few years after her 
birth Owenson. having quarrelled with Daly, invested his 
savings in a tumble- down building known as the Old 
Music Hall, which he restored, and re-named the 
National Theatre. The season opened with a grand 

99 



LADY MORGAN 

national performance, and everything promised well, 
when, like a bomb-shell, came the annomicement that 
the Government had granted to Richard Daly an exclu- 
sive patent for the performance of legitimate drama in 
Dublin. INIr. Owenson was thus obliged to close his 
theatre at the end of his first season, but he received 
some compensation for his losses, and was offered a re- 
eno-ao"ement under Daly on fjivourable terms, an offer 
which he had the sense to accept. 

A short period of comparative calm and freedom from 
embarrassment now set in for the Owenson family. Mrs. 
Owenson was a careful mother, and extremely anxious 
about the education of her two little girls, Sydney and 
Olivia. There is a touch of pathos in the picture of the 
prim, methodistical English lady, who hated the dirt and 
slovenliness of her husband's people, was shocked at their 
jovial ways and free talk, looked upon all Papists as con- 
nections of Antichrist, and hoped for the salvation of man- 
kind through the form of religion patronised by Lady 
Huntingdon. She was accustomed to hold up as an 
example to her little girls the career of a certain model 
child, the daughter of a distant kinsman, Sir Rowland 
Hill of Shropshire. This appalling infant had read the 
Bible twice through before she was five, and knitted all 
the stockings worn by her father's coachman. The lively 
Sydney detested the memory of her virtuous young kins- 
woman, for she had great difficulty in mastering the art 
of reading, though she learned easily by heart, and could 
imitate almost anything she saw. At a very early age 
she could go through the whole elaborate process of 
hair-dressing, from the first papillote to the last puff" 
of the powder-machine, and amused herself by arrang- 
ing her father's old wigs in one of the windows, under 
100 



LADY MORGAN 

the inscription, ' Sydney Owenson, System, Tete, and 
Peruke Maker/ 

Mr. Owenson found his friends among all the wildest 
wits of Dublin, but his wife's society was strictly limited, 
both at the Old Music Hall, part of which had been 
utilised as a dwelling, and at the country villa that her 
husband had taken for her at Drumcondra. Yet she 
does not appear to have permitted her religious prejudices 
to interfere with her social relaxations, since her three 
chief intimates at this time were the Rev. Charles 
Macklin (nephew of the actor), a great performer on the 
Irish pipes, who had been dismissed from his curacy for 
playing out the congregation on his favourite instrument ; 
a Methodist preacher who had come over on one of Lady 
Huntingdon's missions ; and a Jesuit priest, who, his order 
being proscribed in Ireland, was living in concealment, 
and in want, it was believed, of the necessaries of life. 
These three regularly frequented the Old Music Hall, 
where points of faith were freely discussed, Mrs. Owenson 
holding the position of Protestant Pope in the little 
circle. In order that the discussions might not be unpro- 
fitable, the Catholic servants were sometimes permitted to 
stand at the door, and gather up the crumbs of theo- 
logical wisdom. 

Female visitors were few, one of the most regular 
being a younger sister of Oliver Goldsmith, who lived 
with a grocer brother in a little shop which was after- 
wards occupied by the father of Thomas Moore. Miss 
Goldsmith was a plain, little old lady, who always carried 
a long tin case, containing a rouleaux of Dr. Goldsmith's 
portraits, which she offered for sale. Sydney much 
preferred her father's friends, more especially his musical 
associates, such as Giordani the composer, and Fisher the 

101 



LADY MORGAN 

violinist, who spent most of their time at his house 
during their visits to Dublin. The children used to hide 
under the table to hear them make music, and picked up 
many melodies by ear. When Mr. Owenson was asked 
why he did not cultivate his daughter's talent, he replied, 
' If I were to cultivate their talent for music, it might 
induce them some day to go upon the stage, and I would 
rather buy them a sieve of black cockles to cry about the 
streets of Dublin than see them the first prima donnas 
of Europe,"* 

The little Owensons possessed one remarkable play- 
fellow in the shape of Thomas Dermody, the ' wonderful 
boy,"* who was regarded in Dublin as a second Chatterton. 
A poor scholar, the son of a drunken country school- 
master, who turned him adrift at fourteen, Dermody had 
wandered up to Dublin, paying his way by reciting 
poetry and telling stories to his humble entertainers, 
with a few tattered books, one shirt, and two shillings for 
all his worldly goods. He first found employment as 
' librarian "" at a cobbler's stall, on which a few cheap 
books were exposed for sale. Later, he got employment 
as assistant to the scene-painter at the Theatre Royal, and 
here he wrote a clever poem on the leading performers, 
which found its way into the green-room. Anxious 
to see the author, the company, Owenson amongst them, 
invaded the painting-room, where they found the boy- 
poet, clad in rags, his hair clotted with glue, his face 
smeared with paint, a pot of size in one hand and a brush 
in the other. The sympathy of the kind-hearted players 
was aroused, and it was decided that something must be 
done for youthful genius in distress. Owenson invited 
the boy to his house, and, by way of testing his powers, 
set him to write a poetical theme on the subject of Dublin 
102 



LADY MORGAN 

University. In less than three-quarters of an hour the 
prodigy returned with a poem of fifty lines, which showed 
an intimate acquaintance with the history of the univer- 
sity from its foundation. A second test having been 
followed by equally satisfactory results, it was decided 
that a sum of money should be raised by subscriptions, 
and that Dermody should be assisted to enter the univer- 
sity. Owenson, with his wife's cordial consent, took the 
young poet into his house, and treated him like his own 
son. Unfortunately, Dermody's genius was weighted by 
the artistic temperament ; he was lazy, irregular in his 
attendance at college, and not particularly grateful to his 
benefactors. By his own acts he fell out of favour, the 
subscriptions that had been collected were returned to 
the donors, and his career would have come to an abrupt 
conclusion, if it had not been that Owenson made interest 
for him with Lady Moira, a distinguished patron of 
literature, who placed him in the charge of Dr. Boyd, the 
translator of Dante. Dermody must have had his good 
points, for he was a favourite with Mrs. Owenson, and the 
dear friend of Sydney and Olivia, whom he succeeded in 
teaching to read and write, a task in which all other 
preceptors had failed. 

In 1788 Mrs. Owenson died rather suddenly, and the 
home was broken up. Sydney and Olivia were at once 
placed at a famous Huguenot school, which had origin- 
ally been established at Portarlington, but was now 
removed to Clontarf, near Dublin. For the next three 
years the children had the benefit of the best teaching 
that could then be obtained, and were subjected to 
a discipline which Lady Morgan always declared was 
the most admirable ever introduced into a 'female 
seminary ** in any country. Sydney soon became popular 

103 



LADY MORGAN 

among her fellows, thanks to her knowledge of Irish songs 
and dances, and it is evident that her schooldays were 
among the happiest and most healthful of her early life. 
The school was an expensive one, and poor Owenson, who, 
with all his faults, seems to have been a careful and 
affectionate father, found it no easy matter to pay for the 
many ' extras."* 

' I remember once,*" writes Lady Morgan, ' our music- 
teacher complained to my father of our idleness as he sat 
beside us at the piano, and we stumbled through the 
overture to Artaxeiwes. His answer to her complaint 
was simple and graphic — for, drawing up the sleeve of 
a handsome surtout, he showed the threadbare sleeve 
of the black coat beneath, and said, touching the 
whitened seams, " I should not be driven to the subter- 
fuge of wearing a greatcoat this hot weather to conceal 
the poverty of my dress beneath, if it were not that I 
wish to give you the advantage of such instruction as 
you are now neglecting."'' The shaft went home, and 
the music-mistress had no occasion to complain again. 

After three years the headmistress retired on her 
fortune, the school was given up, and the two girls were 
placed at what they considered a very inferior establish- 
ment in Dublin. Here, however, they had the delight 
of seeing their father every Sunday, when the widower, 
leaving the attractions of the city behind, took his little 
daughters out walking with him. To this time belong 
memories of early visits to the theatre, where Sydney saw 
Mrs. Siddons for the first and last time, and Miss Farren 
as Susan in the Marriage of Figaro, just before her 
own marriage to Lord Derby. During the summer 
seasons Mr. Owenson toured round the provinces, and 
generally took his daughters with him, who seem to 
104 



LADY MORGAN 

have been made much of by the neighbouring county 
families. 

In 1794 the too optimistic Owenson unfortunately took 
it into his head that it would be an excellent speculation 
to build a summer theatre at Kilkenny. Lord Ormond, 
who took an interest in the project, gave a piece of 
land opposite the castle gates, money was borrowed, 
the theatre quickly built, and performers brought at 
great expense from Dublin. During the summer the 
house was filled nightly by overflowing audiences, and 
everything promised well, when the attorney who held a 
mortgage on the building, foreclosed, and bills to an 
enormous amount Avere presented. Mr. Owenson suddenly 
departed for the south of Ireland, having been advised to 
keep out of the way until after the final meeting of his 
creditors. His two daughters were placed in Dublin 
lodgings under the care of their faithful old servant, 
Molly Atkins, until their school should reopen. 

Sydney had been requested to write to her father every 
day, and as she was passionately fond, to quote her 
own words, of writing about anything to any one, she 
willingly obeyed, trusting to chance for franks. Some of 
these youthful epistles were preserved by old Molly, the 
packet being indorsed on the cover, ' Letters from Miss 
Sydney Owenson to her father, God pity her ! "' But the 
young lady evidently did not consider herself an object 
of pity, for she writes in the best of spirits about the 
books she is reading, the people she is meeting, and all 
the little gaieties and excitements of her life. Somebody 
lends her an Essay on the Human Understandings by 
Mr. Locke, Gent., whose theories she has no difficulty in 
understanding; and somebody else talks to her about 
chemistry (a word she has never heard at school), and 

105 



LADY MORGAN 

declares that her questions are so suggestive (another 
new word) that she might become a second Pauline 
Lavosier. She puts her new knowledge to practical 
effect by writing with a piece of phosphorus on her bed- 
room wall, ' Molly, beware ! ' with the result that Molly 
is frightened out of her wits, the young experimenter 
burns her hand, and the house is nearly set on fire. The 
eccentric Dermody turns up again, now a smart young 
ensign, having temporarily forsaken letters, and obtained 
a commission through the interest of Lord Moira. He 
addresses a flattering poem to Sydney, and passes on to 
rejoin his regiment at Cork, whence he is to sail for 
Flanders. 

Mr. Owenson"'s affairs did not improve. He tried his 
fortune in various provincial theatres, but the political 
ferment of the years immediately preceding the Union, 
the disturbed state of the country, and the persecution of 
the Catholics, all spelt ruin for theatrical enterprises. 
As soon as Sydney realised her true position she rose to 
the occasion, and the letter that she wrote to her father, 
proposing to relieve him of the burden of her mainten- 
ance, is full of affection and spirit. It will be observed 
that as yet she is contented to express herself simply and 
naturally, without the fine language, the incessant quota- 
tions, and the mangled French that disfigured so much 
of her published work. The girl, who must now have 
been seventeen or eighteen, had seen her father's name 
on the list of bankrupts, but it had been explained to 
her that, with time and economy, he would come out 
of his difficulties as much respected as ever. Having 
informed him of her determination not to return to 
school, but to support herself in future, she continues : — 

'Now, dear papa, I have two novels nearly finished. 
106 



LADY MORGAN 

The first is St. Clair ; I think I wrote it in imitation of 
Werther^ which I read last Christmas. The second is a 
French novel, suggested by my reading the Memoirs of 
the Due de Sully, and falling in love with Henri iv. 
Now, if I had time and quiet to finish them, I am sure 
I could sell them; and observe, sir, Miss Burney got 
.^'SOOO for Camilla, and brought out Evelina unknown 
to her father; but all this takes time," Sydney goes on 
to suggest that Olivia shall be placed at a school, where 
Molly could be taken as children's maid, and that she 
herself should seek a situation as governess or companion 
to young ladies. 

Through the good offices of her old dancing-master, 
M. Fontaine, who had been appointed master of cere- 
monies at the castle, Sydney was introduced to Mrs. 
Featherstone, or Featherstonehaugh, of Bracklin Castle, 
who required a governess-companion to her young 
daughters, and apparently did not object to youth and 
inexperience. Tiie girFs cUhut in her employer's family 
would scarcely have made a favourable impression in any 
country less genial and tolerant than the Ireland of that 
period. On the night of her departure M. Fontaine gave 
a little hal cVadieu in her honour, and as the mail passed 
the end of his street at midnight, it was arranged that 
Sydney should take her travelling-dress with her to the 
ball, and change before starting on her journey. Of 
course she took no count of the time, and was gaily 
dancing to the tune of ' Money in Both Pockets,' with an 
agreeable partner, when the horn sounded at the end of 
the street. Like an L'ish Cinderella, away flew Sydney 
in her muslin gown and pink shoes and stockings, followed 
by her admirers, laden with her portmanteau and bundle 
of clothes. There was j ust time for Molly to throw an 

107 



T.ADY M()U(;AN 

old cloak over her ch;iri;o, ;uul then the coach door was 
banged-to, and the little governess travelled away through 
the winter's night. In the excitement of an adventure 
with an olHcer en roiifc, she allowed her luggage to be 
carried on in the coach, and arrived at Bracklin, a shiver- 
ing little object, in her muslin frock and pink satin shoes. 
Her stauMuered explanations were received with amuse- 
ment and syuipathy by her kind-hearted hosts, and she 
was carried off to her own rooms, ' the prettiest suite you 
ever saw,"" she tells her father, 'a study, bedroom, and 
bath-room, a roaring turf (ire in the rooms, an open 
piano, and lots of books scattered about. Betty, the old 
nursi>, bi'ought me a bowl of laughing ])otatoes, and gave 
me a hi'artv ''Aluch good may it do yoi:, miss''''; and dichrt 
I ti|) her a word of Irish, which delighted her. . . . Our 
dinner-party were mannna and the two young ladies, 
two itinerant [)rece{)tors, a writing and elocution master, 
and a dancing-master, and Father Murj)hy, the IM*. — such 
fun! — and the llev. T\Ir. Heaulort,thecurateof Castlc^town."" 
iNliss Sydiu-y was cpiite at her ease with all these new 
ac(iuaiutances, and so brilliant were her sallies at dinner 
that, aecoriling to her own account, the mon-servants 
were obligt'd to stuff their napkins down their throats till 
Ihev were ni\aily suffocated. The priest proposed her 
health in a comic sj)eech, and a piper having come up on 
j)nr[)ose to ' ))lav in INIiss Owenson,^ the evening wound 
up with the djineing of Irish jigs, and the singing of Irish 
songs. One is inclined to doubt whether Svclnev's instruc- 
tions weiv of nuich scientific value, but it is evident that 
she enjoved her oreupation, was the very good friend of 
both ein|)lovers and pupils, and knew nothing of the 
snubs and m>glect experienced by so many of our nu)dern 
dane I'^vres. 
"lOS 



LADY MORGAN 

The death of Mrs. Featherstone's mother, Lady Steele, 
who had been one of the belles of Lord ChesterfieWs 
court, placed a fine old house in Dominic Street, Dublin, 
at the disposal of the ffimily. At the head of the musical 
society of Dublin at that date was Sir John Stevenson, 
who is now chieHy remembered for his ai-rangement of 
the airs to Moore's Melodies. One day, while giving a 
lesson to the Miss Fcatherstones, Sir John sung a song 
by Moore, of whom Sydney had then never heard. Pleased 
at her evident appreciation, Stevenson asked if she would 
like to meet the poet, and promised to take her and 
Olivia to a little musical party at his mother''s house. 
Moore had already made a success in London society, 
which he followed up in the less exclusive circles of 
Dublin, and it was only between a party at the Provosfs 
and another at Lady Antrim's that he could dash into 
the paternal shop for a few minutes to sing a couple of 
songs for his mother's guests. IJut the effect of his 
performance upon the (^wenson sisters was electrical. 
They went home in such a state of spiritual exaltation, 
that they forgot to undress before getting into bed, and 
awoke to plan, the one a new romance, the other a 
portrait of the poet. 

Sydney had already finished her first novel, St. Clair, 
which she determined to take secretly to a publisher. 
We arc given to understand that this was her first 
independent literary attempt, though she tells us that 
her father had printed a little volume of her poems, 
written between the ages of twelve and fourteen. This 
book seems to have been j)ublished, however, in 1801, 
when the author nuist have been at least one-and-twenty. 
It was dedicated to Lady Moira, through whose influence 
it found its way into the most fashionable boudoirs of 

109 



LADY MORGAN 

Dublin. Be this as it may, Sydney gives a picturesque 
description of her early morning's ramble in search of a 
publisher. She eventually left her manuscript in the 
reluctant hands of a Mr. Brown, who promised to 
submit it to his reader, and returned to her employer's 
house before her absence had been remarked. The next 
day the family left Dublin for Bracklin, and as Sydney 
had forgotten to give her address to the publisher, 
it is not surprising that, for the time being, she heard 
no more of her bantling. Some months later, when 
she was in Dublin again, she picked up a novel in a 
friend's house, and found that it was her own St. Clair. 
On recalling herself to the publisher's memory, she 
received the handsome remuneration of — four copies of 
her own work ! The book, a foolish, high-flown story, 
a long way after Werther, had some success in Dublin, 
and brought its author — literary ladies being com- 
paratively few at that period — a certain meed of social 
fame. 

Mr. Owenson, who had left the stage in 1798, was 
settled at Coleraine at this time, and desired to have 
both his daughters with him. Accordingly, Sydney gave 
up her employment, and tried to make herself contented 
at home. But the dulness and discomfort of the life 
were too much for her, and after a few months she took 
another situation as governess, this time with a Mrs. 
Crawford at Fort William, where she seems to have been 
as much petted and admired as at Bracklin. There is 
no doubt that Sydney Owenson Avas a flirt, a sentimental 
flirt, who loved playing with fire, but it has been hinted 
that she was inclined to represent the polite attentions 
of her gallant countrymen as serious affairs of the heart. 
She left behind her a packet of love-letters (presented to 
110 



LADY MORGAN 

her husband after her marriage), and some of these are 
quoted in her Memoirs. The majority, however, point 
to no very definite ' intentions ' on the part of the 
writers, but are composed in the artificially romantic vein 
which Rousseau had brought into fashion. Among the 
letters are one or two from the unfortunate Dermody, 
who had retired on half-pay, and was now living in 
London, engaged in writing his Memoirs (he was in 
the early twenties) and preparing his poems for the 
press. 

' Were you a Venus I should forget you,"* he writes to 
Sydney, ' but you are a Laura, a Leonora, and an Eloisa, 
all in one delightful assemblage.' He is evidently a little 
piqued by Sydney's admiration of Moore, for in a letter 
to Mr. Owenson he asks, ' Who is the Mr. Moore Sydney 
mentions ? He is nobody here, I assure you, of eminence.' 
A little later, however, he writes to Sydney : ' You are 
mistaken if you imagine I have not the highest respect 
for your friend Moore. I have written the review of his 
poems in a strain of panegyric to which I am not 
frequently accustomed. I am told he is a most worthy 
young man, and I am certain myself of his genius and 
erudition.' Dermody's own career was nearly at an 
end. He died of consumption in 1802, aged only 
twenty-five. 

If Sydney scandalised even the easy-going society of 
the period by her audacious flirtations, she seems to have 
had the peculiarly Irish faculty of keeping her head in 
affairs of the heart, and dancing in perfect security on 
the edge of a gulf of sentiment. Her work helped to 
steady her, and the love-scenes in her novels served as a 
safety-valve for her ardent imagination. Her father, 
notoriously happy-go-lucky about his own affairs, was a 

111 



LADY MORGAN 

careful guardian of his daughters' reputation, while old 
Molly was a dragon of propriety. Sydney, moreover, had 
acquired one or two women friends, much older than 
herself, such as the literary Lady Charleville, and Mrs. 
Lefanu, sister of Sheridan, who were always ready with 
advice and sympathy. With Mrs. Lefanu Sydney corre- 
sponded regularly for many years, and in her letters 
discusses the debatable points in her books, and enlarges 
upon her own character and temperament. Chief among 
her ambitions at this time was that of being ' every inch 
a woman,' and she was a firm believer in the fashionable 
theory that true womanliness was incompatible with 
learning. ' I dropped the study of chemistry,"' she tells 
her friend, ' though urged to it by a favourite preceptor, 
lest I should be less the xvoman. Seduced by taste and a 
thousand arguments to Greek and Latin, I resisted, lest 
I should not be a very woman. And I have studied 
music as a sentiment rather than as a science, and 
drawing as an amusement rather than as an art, lest 
I should become a musical pedant, or a masculine 
artist.' 

In 1803, the Crawfords having decided to leave Fort 
William and live entirely in the country, Sydney, who 
had a mortal dread of boredom, gave up her situation, 
and returned to her father, who was now settled near 
Strabane. Here she occupied her leisure in writing a 
second novel. The Novice of St. Dominic, in six volumes. 
When this was completed, Mrs. Lefanu advised her to 
take it to London herself, and arrange for its publication. 
Quite alone, and with very little money in her pocket, 
the girl travelled to London, and presented herself before 
Sir Richard Phillips, a well-known publisher, with whom 
she had already had some correspondence. If we may 
112 



LADY MORGAN 

believe her own testimony, Sir Richard fell an easy victim 
to her fascinations, and there is no doubt that he was 
very kind to her, introduced her to his wife, and found 
her a lodging. Better still, he bought her book (we are 
not told the price), and paid her for it at once. The 
first purchases that she made with her own earnings were 
a small Irish harp, which accompanied her thereafter 
wherever she went, and a black ' mode cloak.'' After her 
return to Ireland, Phillips corresponded with her, and 
gave her literary advice, which is interesting in so far as 
it shows what the reading public of that day wanted, or 
was supposed to want. 

'The world is not informed about Ireland,' wrote the 
publisher, ' and I am in a condition to command the 
light to shine. I am sorry you have assumed the novel 
form. A series of letters addressed to a friend in London, 
taking for your model the letters of Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu, would have secured you the most extensive 
reading. A matter-of-fact and didactic novel is neither 
one thing nor the other, and suits no class of readers. 
Certainly, however, Paul mid Virginia would suggest a 
local plan ; and it will be possible by writing three or 
four times over in six or eight months to produce what 
would command attention." Sir Richard concluded his 
advice with the assurance that his correspondent had it 
in her to write an immortal work, if she would only labour 
it sufficiently, and that her third copy was certain to be 
a monument of Irish genius. Miss Owenson was the 
last person to act upon the above directions ; her books 
read as if they were dashed off in a fine frenzy of 
composition. Perhaps she feared that her cherished 
womanliness would be endangered by too close an atten- 
tion to accuracy and style. 

H 113 



LADY MORGAN 

The Novice, which appeared in 1804, was better than 
*S'^. Clair, but such success as it enjoyed must have been 
due to the prevailing scarcity of first-rate, or even second- 
rate novelists, rather than to its own intrinsic merits. 
The public taste in fiction was not fastidious, and could 
swallow long-winded discussions and sentimental rhodo- 
montade with an appetite that now seems almost 
incredible. The Novice is said to have been a favourite 
with Pitt in his last illness, but if this be true, the fact 
points rather to the decay of the statesman's intellect 
than to the literary value of the book. Still the author 
was tasting all the sweets of fame. She was much in 
request as a literary celebrity, and somebody had actually 
written for permission to select the best passages from 
her two books for publication in a work called The 
Morality of English Novels. 

In the same year, 1804, an anonymous attack upon the 
Irish stage in six Familiar Epistles was published in 
Dublin. So cruel and venomous were these epistles that 
one actor, Edwin, is believed to have died of chagrin at 
the attack upon his reputation. An answer to the libel 
presently appeared, which was signed S. O., and has been 
generally attributed to Sydney Owenson. The Fayniliar 
Epistles were believed to be the work of John Wilson 
Croker, then young and unknoAvn, and it may be that the 
lifelong malignity with which that critic pursued Lady 
Morgan was due to this early crossing of swords. 
Sydney herself was fond of hinting that Croker, in his 
obscure days, had paid her attentions which she, as a 
successful author, had not cared to encourage, and that 
wounded vanity was at the bottom of his hatred. 

The next book on which Miss Owenson engaged was, 
if not her best, the one by which she is best known, 
114 



LADY MORGAN 

namely, The Wild Irish Girl. The greater part of this 
was written while she Avas staying with Sir Malby 
Crofton at Longford House, from whose family, as has 
been seen, she claimed to be descended. Miss Crofton 
sat for the portrait of the heroine, and much of the 
scenery was sketched in the wild romantic neighbourhood. 
About the same time she collected and translated a 
number of Irish songs which were published under the 
title of The Lay of the Irish Harp. She thus anticipated 
Moore, and other explorers in this field, for which fact 
Moore at least gives her credit in the preface to his own 
collection. She was not a poet, but she wrote one 
ballad, ' Kate Kearney,'' which became a popular song, 
and is not yet forgotten. 

The story of The Wild Irish Girl is said to have been 
founded upon an incident in the author's own life. A 
young man named Everard had fallen in love with her, 
but as he was wild, idle, and penniless, his father called 
upon her to beg her not to encourage him, but to use 
her influence to make him stick to his work. Sydney 
behaved so well in the matter that the elder Mr. Everard 
desired to marry her himself, and though his offer was 
not accepted, he remained her staunch friend and admirer. 
The 'local colour"' in the book is carefully worked up; 
indeed, in the present day it would probably be thought 
that the story was overweighted by the account of local 
manners and customs. Phillips, alarmed at the liberal 
principles displayed in the work, which he thought would 
be distasteful to English patriots, refused at first to give 
the author her price. To his horror and indignation 
Miss Owenson, whom he regarded as his own particular 
property, instantly sent the manuscript to a rival book- 
seller, Johnson, who published for Miss Edgeworth. 

115 



LADY MORGAN 

Johnson offered i^300 for the book, while Phillips had 
only offered ,£*200 down, and £50 on the publication of 
the second and third editions respectively. The latter, 
however, was unable to make up his mind to lose the 
treasure, and after much hesitation and many heart- 
burnings, he finally wrote to Miss Owenson : — 

'Dear bewitching and deluding Syren, — Not being 
able to part from you, I have promised your noble and 
magnanimous friend, Atkinson [who was conducting the 
negotiations], the ^£'300. ... It will be long before I 
forgive you ! At least not till I have got back the <£'300 
and another ,£^100 along with it." Then follows a passage 
which proves that the literary market, in those days at 
any rate, was not overstocked : ' If you know any poor 
bard — a real one, no pretender — I will give him a guinea 
a page for his rhymes in the Monthly Magazine. I will 
also give for prose communications at the rate of six 
guineas a sheet.' 

The Wild bish Girl^ whose title was suggested by 
Peter Pindar, made a hit, more especially in Ireland, 
and the author woke to find herself famous. She be- 
came known to all her friends as ' Glorvina,' the name 
of the heroine, while the Glorvina ornament, a golden 
bodkin, and the Glorvina mantle became fashionable 
in Dublin. The book was bitterly attacked, probably 
by Croker, in the Freemans Journal, but the best bit 
of criticism upon it is contained in a letter from Mr. 
Edgeworth to Miss Owenson. ' Maria,' he says, ' who 
reads as well as she writes, has entertained us with 
several passages from The Wild Irish Girl, which I 
thought superior to any parts of the book I had read. 
Upon looking over her shoulder, I found she had omitted 
116 



LADY MORGAN 

some superfluous epithets. Dared she have done this if 
you had been by ? I think she would ; because your 
good sense and good taste would have been instantly 
her defenders.'' It must be admitted that all Lady 
Morgan's works would have gained by the like treat- 
ment. 

In an article called ' My First Rout,' which appeared 
in The Book of the Boudoir (published in 1829), Lady 
Morgan describes a party at Lady Cork's, where she was 
lionised by her hostess, the other guests having been 
invited to meet the Wild Irish Girl. The celebrities 
present were brought up and introduced to Miss Owenson 
with a running comment from Lady Cork, which, though 
it must be taken with a grain of salt, is worth tran- 
scribing : — 

' Lord Erskine, this is the Wild Irish Girl you were 
so anxious to meet. I assure you she talks quite as well 
as she writes. Now, my dear, do tell Lord Erskine some 
of those Irish stories you told us at Lord Charleville's. 
Mrs. Abington says you would make a famous actress, 
she does indeed. This is the Duchess of St. Albans — 
she has your Wild Irish Girl by heart. Where is 
Sheridan ? Oh, here he is ; what, you know each other 
already ? Tant mieux. Mr. Lewis, do come forward ; 
this is Monk Lewis, of whom you have heard so much — 
but you must not read his works, they are very naughty. 
. . . You know Mr. Gell ; he calls you the Irish Corinne. 
Your friend, Mr. Moore, will be here by-and-by. Do 
see, somebody, if Mrs. Siddons and Mr. Kemble are come 
yet. Now pray tell us the scene at the Irish baronet's 
in the Rebellion that you told to the ladies of Llangollen ; 
and then give us your blue-stocking dinner at Sir Richard 
Phillips' ; and describe the Irish priests.' 

117 



LADY MORGAN 

At supper Sydney was placed between Lord Erskine 
and Lord Carysfort, and was just beginning to feel at 
her ease when Mr. Kemble was announced. Mr. Kenible, 
it soon became apparent, had been dining, and had paid 
too much attention to the claret. Sitting down opposite 
Miss Owenson, he fixed her with an intense and glassy 
stare. Unfortunately, her hair, which she wore in the 
fashionable curly ' crop,' aroused his curiosity. Stretch- 
ing unsteadily across the table, he suddenly, to quote her 
own words, ' struck his claws into my locks, and address- 
ing me in his deepest tones, asked, " Little girl, where 
did you buy your wig?""'' Lord Erskine hastily came 
to the rescue, but Kemble, rendered peevish by his 
interference, took a volume of The Wild Irish Girl 
out of his pocket, and after reading aloud one of the 
most high-flown passages, asked, ' Little girl, why did 
you write such nonsense, and where did you get all 
those hard words ? '' Sydney delighted the company 
by blurting out the truth : ' Sir, I wrote as well as 
I could, and I got the hard words out of Johnson's 
Dictionary.' That Kemble spoke the truth in his cups 
may be proved by the following sentence, which is a fair 
sample of the general style of the book : ' With a char- 
acter tinctured with the brightest colouring of romantic 
eccentricity [a father is describing his son, the hero], but 
marked by indelible traces of innate rectitude, and en- 
nobled by the purest principles of native generosity, the 
proudest sense of inviolable honour, I beheld him rush 
eagerly on life, enamoured of its seeming good, incredu- 
lous of its latent evils, till, fatally entangled in the spells 
of the latter, he fell an early victim to their successful 
allurements.' 

The Wild Irish Girl was followed by Patriotic Sketches 
118 



LADY MORGAN 

and a volume of poems, for which Sir Richard PhiUips 
offered i?100 before he read them. A little later, in 
1807, an operetta called The First Attempt^ or the Whim 
of the Moment^ the libretto by Miss Owenson and the 
music by T. Cooke, was performed at the Dublin Theatre. 
The Duke of Bedford, then Lord-Lieutenant, attended 
in state, the Duchess wore a Glorvina bodkin, and the 
entertainment was also patronised by the officers of the 
garrison and all the liberal members of the Irish bar. 
The little piece, in which Mr. Owenson acted an Irish 
character, was played for several nights, and brought 
its author the handsome sum of =£'400. This, however, 
seems to have been Sydney's first and last attempt at 
dramatic composition. 

The family fortunes had improved somewhat at this 
time, for Olivia, who had gone out as a governess, be- 
came engaged to Dr., afterwards Sir Arthur Clarke, a 
plain, elderly little gentleman, who, however, made her 
an excellent husband. Having a good house and a com- 
fortable income, he was able to offer a home to Mr, 
Owenson and to the faithful Molly. For the present, 
Sydney, though always on excellent terms with her 
brother-in-law, preferred her independence. She estab- 
lished herself in lodgings in Dublin, and made the most 
of the position that her works had w^on for her. Her flirt- 
ations and indiscretions provided the town with plenty 
of occasion for scandal, and there is a tradition tliat one 
strictly proper old lady, on being asked to chaperon 
Miss Owenson to the Castle, replied that when Miss 
Owenson wore more petticoats and less paint she would 
be happy to do so. Yet another tradition has been 
handed down to the effect that Miss Owenson appeared 
at one of the Viceregal balls in a dress, the bodice of 

119 



LADY MORGAN 

which was trimmed with the portraits of her rejected 
lovers ! 

Foremost among our heroine''s admirers at this time 
was Sir Charles Ormsby, K.C., then member for Munster, 
He was a widower, deeply in debt, and a good deal 
older than Sydney, but if there was no actual engage- 
ment, there was certainly an ' understanding ' between 
the pair. In May, 1808, Miss Owenson was on a visit 
to the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley at Penrhos 
(one of the new friends her celebrity had gained for her), 
whence she wrote a sentimental epistle to Sir Charles 
Ormsby. The Sir John Stanley mentioned in the letter 
was the husband of Maria Josepha Holroyd, to whom he 
had been married in 1796. 

' The figure and person of Lady Stanley are inimit- 
able,' writes Sydney. ' Vandyck would have estimated 
her at millions. Though old, her manners, her mind, and 
her conversation are all of the best school. . . . Sir John 
Stanley is a man comme il y en a peu. Something at 
first of English reserve ; but when worn off, I never met 
a mind more daring, more independent in its reflections, 
more profound or more refined in its ideas. He said a 
thousand things like you ; I am convinced he has loved 
as you love. We sat up till two this morning talking of 
Corinne. ... I have been obliged to sing " Deep in 
Love " so often for my Iiandsome host, and every time it 
IS as for you I sing it."" The letter concludes with the 
words, '^imon^ toiij ours comme a V ordinaire.'' The pair 
may have loved, but they were continually quarrelling, 
and their intimacy was finally broken a year or two 
later. Lady Morgan preserved to the end of her days a 
packet of love-letters indorsed, ' Sir Charles Montague 
Ormsby, Bart., one of the most brilliant wits, deter- 
120 



LADY MORGAN 

mined roues, agreeable persons, and ugliest men of 
his day.' 

The summer of this year, 1808, Miss Owenson spent 
in a round of visits to country-houses, and in working, 
amid many distractions, at her Grecian novel, Ida of 
Athens. After the first volume had gone to press, 
Phillips took fright at some of the opinions therein 
expressed, and refused to proceed further with the work. 
It was then accepted by Longmans, who, however, were 
somewhat alarmed at what they considered the Deistical 
principles and the taint of French philosophy that ran 
through the book. Ida is a houri and a woman of genius, 
who dresses in a tissue of woven air, has a taste for 
philosophical discussions, and a talent for getting into 
perilous situations, from which her strong sense of pro- 
priety invariably delivers her. This book was the subject 
of adverse criticism in the first number of the Quarterly 
Review, the critic being, it is believed. Miss Owenson's 
old enemy, Croker. As a work of art, the novel was 
certainly a just object of ridicule, but the personalities 
by which the review is disfigured were unworthy of a 
responsible critic. 

' The language,' observes the reviewer, ' is an inflated 
jargon, composed of terms picked up in all countries, 
and wholly irreducible to any ordinary rules of grammar 
and sense. The sentiments are mischievous in tendency, 
profligate in principle, licentious and irreverent in the 
highest degree.' The first part of this accusation was 
only too well founded, but the licentiousness of which 
Lady Morgan's works were invariably accused in the 
Qnarterly Review, can only have existed in the mind of 
the reviewer. One cannot but smile to think how many 
persons with a taste for highly-spiced fiction must have 

121 



LADY MORGAN 

been set searching through Lady Morgan"'s novels by 
these notices, and how bitterly they must have been dis- 
appointed. The review in question concludes with the 
remark that if the author would buy a spelling-book, a 
pocket-dictionary, exchange her raptures for common 
sense, and gather a few precepts of humility from the 
Bible, ' she might hope to prove, not indeed a good 
writer of novels, but a useful friend, a faithful wife, a 
tender mother, and a respectable and happy mistress of 
a family.' This impertinence is thoroughly characteristic 
of the days when the Quarterly was regarded as an 
amusing but frivolous, not to say flippant, publication. 

Ida of Athens received the honour of mention in a note 
to Childe Harold. ' I will request Miss Owenson,' writes 
Byron, ' when she next chooses an Athenian heroine for 
her four volumes, to have the goodness to marry her to 
somebody more of a gentleman than a "Disdar Aga" 
(who, by the way, is not an Aga), the most impolite of 
petty officers, the greatest patron of larceny Athens ever 
saw (except Lord E[lgin]), and the unworthy occupant of 
the Acropolis, on a handsome stipend of 150 piastres 
(<^8 sterling), out of which he has to pay his garrison, 
the most ill-regulated corps in the ill-regulated Ottoman 
Empire. I speak it tenderly, seeing I was once the cause 
of the husband of Ida nearly suffering the bastinado; 
and because the said Disdar is a turbulent fellow who 
beats his wife, so that I exhort and beseech Miss Owenson 
to sue for a separate maintenance on behalf of Ida."* 

In 1809 Lady Abercorn, the third wife of the first 
Marquis, having taken a sudden fancy to Miss Owenson, 
proposed that she should come to Stanmore Priory, and 
afterwards to Baron's Court, as a kind of permanent 
visitor. A fine lady of the old-fashioned, languid, idle, 
122 



LADY MORGAN 

easily bored type, Lady Abercorn desired a lively, 
amusing companion, who would deliver her from the 
terrors of a solitude a deiix, make music in the evenings, 
and help to entertain her guests. It was represented to 
Sydney that such an invitation was not lightly to be 
refused, but as acceptance involved an almost total 
separation from her friends, she hesitated to enter into 
any actual engagement, and went to the Abercorns for 
two or three months as an ordinary visitor. Lord 
Abercorn, who was then between fifty and sixty, had 
been married three times, and divorced once. So fas- 
tidious a fine gentleman was he that the maids were not 
allowed to make his bed except in white kid gloves, 
and his groom of his chambers had orders to fumigate 
his rooms after liveried servants had been in them. He 
is described as handsome, witty, and blase, a roue in 
principles and a Tory in politics. Nothing pleased Lady 
Morgan better in her old age, we are told, than to have 
it insinuated that there had been 'something wrong' 
between herself and Lord Abercorn. 

In January, 1810, Sydney writes to Mrs. Lefanu from 
Stanmore Priory to the effect that she is the best-lodged, 
best-fed, dullest author in his Majesty*'s dominions, and 
that the sound of a commoner's name is refreshment to 
her ears. She is surrounded by ex-lord-lieutenants, 
unpopular princesses (including her of Wales) deposed 
potentates (including him of Sweden), half the nobility 
of England, and many of the best wits and writers. She 
had sat to Sir Thomas Lawrence for her portrait, and 
sold her Indian novel. The Missionary^ for a famous 
price. Lord Castlereagh, while staying at Stanmore, 
heard portions of the work read aloud, and admired it 
so much that he offered to take the author to London, 

123 



LADY MORGAN 

and give her a rendezvous with her publisher in his own 
study. Stockdale, the publisher, was so much impressed 
by his surroundings that he bid ,£^400 for the book, 
and the agreement was signed and sealed under Lord 
Castlereagh's eye. The Missionary was not so successful 
as The Wild Irish Girl, and added nothing to the 
author's reputation. 

It was not until the end of 1810 that Miss Owenson 
decided to become a permanent member of the Abercorn 
household. About this time, or a little later, she wrote 
a short description of her temperament and feelings, 
from which a sentence or two may be quoted. ' Incon- 
siderate and indiscreet, never saved by prudence, but 
often rescued by pride ; often on the verge of error, but 
never passing the line. Committing myself in every way 
except in my own esteem — without any command over my 
feelings, my words, or writings — yet full of self-possession 
as to action and conduct.' After describing her sufferings 
from nervous susceptibility and mental depression, she 
continues : ' But the hand that writes this has lost 
nothing of the contour of health or the symmetry of 
youth. I am in possession of all the fame I ever hoped 
or ambitioned. I wear not the appearance of twenty 
years ; I am now, as I generally am, sad and miserable.' 

In 1811 Dr. Morgan, a good-looking widower of about 
eight-and-twenty, accepted the post of private physician 
to Lord Abercorn. He was a Cambridge man, an 
intimate friend of Dr. Jenner's, and possessed a small 
fortune of his own. When he first arrived at Baron's 
Court, Miss Owenson was absent, and he heard so much 
of her praises that he conceived a violent prejudice 
against her. On her return she set to work systematic- 
ally to fascinate him, and succeeded even better than she 
124 



LADY MORGAN 

had hoped or desired. In Lady Abercorn he had a warm 
partisan, but it may be suspected that the ambitious 
Miss Owenson found it hard to renounce all hopes of a 
more brilliant match. The Abercorns having vowed 
that Dr. Morgan should be made Sir Charles, and that 
they would push his fortunes, Sydney yielded to their 
importunities so far as to write to her father, and ask his 
consent to her engagement. 

' I dare say you will be amazingly astonished,"* she 
observes, 'but not half so much as I am, for Lord and 
Lady Abercorn have hurried on the business in such a 
manner that I really don't know what I am about. They 
called me in last night, and, more like parents than 
friends, begged me to be guided by them — that it was 
their wish not to lose sight of me . . . and that if I 
accepted Morgan, the man upon earth they most 
esteemed and approved, they would be friends to both 
for life — that we should reside with them one year after 
our marriage, so that we might lay up our income to 
begin the Avorld. He is also to continue their physician. 
He has now ^CSOO a year, independent of his practice. I 
don't myself see the thing quite in the light they do ; 
but they think him a man of such great abilities, such 
great worth and honour, that I am the most fortunate 
person in the world." 

To her old friend, Mrs. Lefanu, she writes in much 
the same strain. ' The licence and ring have been in the 
house these ten days, and all the settlements made ; yet 
I have been battling off from day to day, and have only 
ten minutes back procured a little breathing time. The 
struggle is almost too great for me. On one side engaged, 
beyond retrieval, to a man who has frequently declared 
to my friends that if I break off he will not survive it ! 

125 



LADY MORGAN 

On the other, the dreadful certainty of being parted for 
ever from a country and friends I love, and a family 
I adore.' 

The 'breathing time' was to consist of a fortnight's 
visit to her sister, Lady Clarke, in Dublin, in order to be 
near her father, who was in failing health. The fortnight, 
however, proved an exceedingly elastic period. Mr. 
Owenson was not dangerously ill, the winter season was 
just beginning, and Miss Owenson was more popular 
than ever. Her unfortunate lover, as jealous as he was 
enamoured, being detained by his duties at Baron's Court, 
could only write long letters of complaint, reproach, and 
appeal to his hard-hearted lady. Sydney was thoroughly 
enjoying herself, and was determined to make the most 
of her last days of liberty. She admitted afterwards that 
she had behaved very badly at this time, and deserved to 
have lost the best husband woman ever had. 

' I picture to myself,' writes poor Dr. Morgan, ' the 
thoughtless and heartless Glorvina trifling with her friend, 
jesting at his sufferings, and flirting with every man she 
meets.' He sends her some commissions, but declares 
that there is only one about which he is really anxious, 
' and that is to love me exclusively ; to prefer me to every 
other good ; to think of me, speak of me, write to me, 
and look forward to our union as to the completion of 
every wish, as I do by you. Do this, and though you 
grow as ugly as Sycorax, you will never lose in me the 
fondest, most doating, affectionate of husbands. Glorvina, 
I was born for tenderness ; my business in life is to love. 
... I read part of The Way to Keep Him this morning, 
and I see now you take the widow for your model ; but 
it won't do, for though I love you in every mood, it is 
only when you are true to nature, passionate and tender, 
126 



LADY MORGAN 

that I adore you. You are never less interesting to me 
than when you brillez in a large party/ 

The fortnight^s leave of absence had been granted in 
September, and by the end of November Dr. Morgan is 
thoroughly displeased with his truant fiancee, and asks 
why she could not have told him when she went away, 
that slie intended to stay till Christmas. ' I know,"" he 
writes, ' this is but a specimen of the roundabout policy 
of all your countrywomen. How strange it is that you, 
who are in general gixat beyond every woman I know, 
philosophical and magnanimous, should in detail be so 
often ill-judging, wrong, and (shall I say) little?"* In 
December Sydney writes to say that she will return 
directly after Christmas, and declares that the terrible 
struggle of feeling, which she had tried to forget in every 
species of mental dissipation, is now over; friends, relatives, 
country, all are resigned, and she is his for ever ! A little 
later she shows signs of wavering again ; she cannot make 
up her mind to part from her invalid father just yet; but 
this time Dr. Morgan puts his foot down, and issues his 
ultimatum in a stern and manly letter. He will be 
trifled with no longer. Sydney must either keep her 
promise and return at Christmas, or they had better part, 
never to meet again. ' The love I require,' he writes, ' is 
no ordinary affection. The woman who marries me must 
be identyied with me. I must have a large bank of tender- 
ness to draw upon. I must have frequent profession and 
frequent demonstration of it. Woman's love is all in 
all to me ; it stands in place of honours and riches, 
and what is yet more, in place of tranquillity of mind.' 

This letter, backed by one from Lady Abercorn, brought 
Sydney to her senses. In the first days of the new year 
(1812) she arrived at Baron's Court, a little shamefaced, 

127 



LADY MORGAN 

and more than a little doubtful of her reception. The 
marquis was stiff, and the marchioness stately, but Sir 
Charles, who had just been knighted by the Lord- 
Lieutenant, was too pleased to get his lady-love back, to 
harbour any resentment against her. A few days after 
her return, as she was sitting over the fire in a morning 
wrapper. Lady Abercorn came in and said : 

'Glorvina, come upstairs directly and be married; 
there must be no more trifling.'' 

The bride was led into her ladyship's dressing-room, 
where the bridegroom was awaiting her in company with 
the chaplain, and the ceremony took place. The marriage 
was kept a secret from the other guests at the time, but 
a few nights later Lord Abercorn filled his glass after 
dinner, and drank to the health of 'Sir Charles and 
Lady Morgan. "^ 



PART II 

The marriage, unpromising as it appeared at the outset, 
proved an exceptionally happy one. Sir Charles was a 
straightforward, worthy, if somewhat dull gentleman, 
with no ambition, a nervous distaste for society, and a 
natural indolence of temperament. To his wife he gave 
the unstinted sympathy and admiration that her restless 
vanity craved, while she invariably maintained that he 
was the wisest, brightest, and handsomest of his sex. 
She seems to have given him no occasion for jealousy 
after marriage, though to the last she preserved her 
passion for society, and her ambition for social recog- 
128 



LADY MORGAN 

nition and success. The first year of married life, which 
she described as a period of storm, interspersed with 
brilliant sunshine, was spent with the Abercorns at 
Baron's Court. 

'Though living in a palace,' wrote Sydney to Mrs. 
Lefanu, early in 1812, ' we have all the comfort and 
independence of a home. . . . As to me, I am every 
inch a wife, and so ends that brilliant thing that was 
Glorvina. N.B. — I intend to write a book to explode 
the vulgar idea of matrimony being the tomb of love. 
Matrimony is the real thing, and all before but leather 
and prunella.' In a letter to Lady Stanley she paints 
Sir Charles in the romantic colours appropriate to a 
novelist's husband. ' In love he is Sheridan's Falkland, 
and in his view of things there is a melange of cynicism 
and sentiment that will never suffer him to be as happy 
as the inferior million that move about him. Marriage 
has taken nothing from the romance of his passion for 
me ; and by bringing a sense of property with it, has 
rendered him more exigent and nervous about me than 
before.' 

The luxury of Baron's Court was probably more than 
counterbalanced by the inevitable drawbacks of married 
life in a patron's household, where the husband, at least, 
was at that patron's beck and call. Before the end of the 
year, the Morgans were contemplating a modest establish- 
ment of their own, and Sydney had set to work upon a 
novel, the price of which was to furnish the new house. 
Mr. Owenson had died shortly after his daughter's 
marriage, and Lady Morgan persuaded her husband to 
settle in Dublin, in order that she might be near her 
sister and her many friends. A house was presently 
taken in Kildare Street, and Sir Charles, who had obtained 
I 129 



LADY MORGAN 

the post of physician to the Marshalsea, set himself to 
establish a practice. Lady Morgan prided herself upon 
her housewifely talents, and in a letter dated May, 1813, 
she describes how she has made their old house clean and 
comfortable, all that their means would permit, ' except 
for one little bit of a room, four inches by three, which 
is fitted up in the Gothic, and I have collected into it the 
best part of a very good cabinet of natural history of 
Sir Charles's, eight or nine hundred volumes of choice 
books in French, English, Italian, and German, some 
little curiosities, and a few scraps of old china, so that, 
with muslin draperies, etc., I have made no contemptible 
set-out. . . . With respect to authorship, I fear it is 
over ; I have been making chair-covers instead of systems, 
and cheapening pots and pans instead of selling sentiment 
and philosophy.' 

In the midst of all her domestic labours, however. 
Lady Morgan contrived to finish a novel, O'Donnel, 
which Colburn published in 1814, and for which she 
received =P550. The book was ill-reviewed, but it was 
an even greater popular success than The Wild Irish 
Girl. The heroine, like most of Lady Morgan's heroines, 
is evidently meant for an idealised portrait of herself, 
and the great ladies by whom she is surrounded are 
sketched from Lady Abercorn and certain of the guests 
at Baron's Court. The Liberal, or as they would now 
be called, Radical principles inculcated in the book 
gave bitter offence to the author's old-fashioned friends, 
and increased the rancour of her Tory reviewers. But 
O'Donnel found numerous admirers, among them no less 
a person than Sir Walter Scott, who notes in his diary 
for March 14, 1826 : ' I have amused myself occasionally 
very pleasantly during the last few days by reading over 
130 



LADY MORGAN 

Lady Morgan"'s novel of 0''Donnel, which has some striking 
and beautiful passages of situation and description, and 
in the comic part is very rich and entertaining. I do not 
remember being so pleased with it at first. There is a 
want of story, always fatal to a book on the first reading 
— and it is well if it gets the chance of a second.' 

The following year, 1815, France being once again 
open to English travellers, the Morgans paid a visit to 
Paris, Lady Morgan having undertaken to write a book 
about what was then a strange people and a strange 
country. The pair went a good deal into society, and 
made many friends, among them Lafayette, Cuvier, the 
Comte de Segur, Madame de Genlis, and Madame 
Jerome Bonaparte. Sydney, whose Celtic manners were 
probably more congenial to the French than Anglo-Saxon 
reserve, seems to have received a great deal of attention, 
and her not over-strong head was slightly turned in con- 
sequence. 

* The French admire you more than any Englishwoman 
who has appeared here since the Battle of Waterloo,' 
wrote Madame Jerome Bonaparte to Lady Morgan, 
after the latter had returned to Ireland. ' France is the 
country you should reside in, because you are so much 
admired, and here no Englishwoman has received the 
same attentions since you. I am dying to see your last 
publication. Public expectation is as high as possible. 
How happy you must be at filling the world with your 
name as you do ! Madame de Stael and Madame de 
Genlis are forgotten ; and if the love of fame be of any 
weight with you, your excursion to Paris was attended 
with brilliant success.' 

Madame de Genlis, in her Memoirs, gives a more 
soberly- worded account of the impression produced by 

131 



LADY MORGAN 

Lady Morgan on Parisian society. The author of France 
is described as ' not beautiful, but with something lively 
and agreeable in her whole person. She is very clever, 
and seems to have a good heart ; it is a pity that for 
the sake of popularity she should have the mania of 
meddling in politics. . . . Her vivacity and rather spring- 
ing carriage seemed very strange in Parisian circles. She 
soon learned that good taste of itself condemned that 
kind of demeanour; in fact, gesticulation and noisy 
manners have never been popular in France."* The spoilt 
little lady was by no means satisfied with this portrait, 
and Sir Charles, who was away from home at the time 
the Memoirs appeared, writes to console her. ' You 
must not mind that lying old witch Madame de Genlis' 
attack upon you,' says the admiring husband. ' I thought 
she would not let you off' easily ; you were not only a 
better and younger (and / may say prettier) author than 
herself, but also a more popular one.' 

Over the price to be paid for Fnince, to which Sir 
Charles contributed some rather heavy chapters on 
medical science, political economy, and jurisprudence, 
there was the usual battle between the keen little woman 
and her publisher. Colburn, having done well with 
O'Donnel, felt justified in offering £150 for the new work, 
but Lady Morgan demanded =£'1000, and got it. The 
sum must have been a substantial compensation for the 
wounds that her vanity received at the hands of the 
reviewers. France, which made its appearance in 1817, 
in two volumes quarto, was eagerly read and loudly 
abused. Croker, in the Quarterly Reviezo, attacked the 
book, or rather tlie author, in an article which has become 
almost historic for its virulence. Poor Lady Morgan was 
accused of bad taste, bombast and nonsense, blunders, 
132 



LADY MOHGAK 

ignorance of the French language and manners, general 
ignorance, Jacobinism, falsehood, licentiousness, and im- 
piety ! The first four or five charges might have been 
proved with little difficulty, if it were worth while to 
break a butterfly on a wheel, but it was necessary to 
distort the meaning and even the text of the original in 
order to give any colour to the graver accusations. 

Croker had discovered, much to his delight, that the 
translator of the work (which was also published in Paris) 
had subjoined a note to some of Lady Morgan^s scraps of 
French, in which he confessed that though the words 
were printed to look like French, he could not understand 
them. The critic observes, a propos of this fact, ' It is, 
we believe, peculiar to Lady Morgan's w^orks, that her 
English readers require an English translation of her 
English, and her French readers a French translation of 
her French.' This w^as a fair hit, as also was the ridicule 
thrown upon such sentences as ' Cider is not held in any 
estimation by the vh-'itahles AmjjMti'yons of rural savoir 
faired Croker professes to be shocked at Lady Morgan's 
mention of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, having hitherto 
cherished the hope that ' no British female had ever seen 
this detestable book ' ; while his outburst of virtuous 
indignation at her mention of the ' superior effusions ' of 
Parny, which some Frenchman had recommended to her, 
is really superb. 'Parny,' he exclaims, 'is the most 
beastly, the most detestably wicked and blasphemous of 
all the writers Avho have ever disgraced literature. Lcs 
Guerres des Dieux is the most dreadful tissue of obscenity 
and depravity that the devil ever inspired to the depraved 
heart of man, and we tremble with horror at the guilt of 
having read unwittingly even so much of the work as 
enables us to pronounce this character of it.' 

133 



LADY MORGAN 

Croker concludes with the hope that he has given such 
an idea of this book as might prevent, in some degree, 
the circulation of trash which, under the name of a 
' Lady author,'' might otherwise have found its way into 
the hands of young persons of both sexes, for whose 
perusal it was, on the score both of morals and politics, 
utterly unfit. Such a notice naturally defeated its own 
object, and France went triumphantly through several 
editions. The review attracted almost as much attention 
as the book, and many protests were raised against it. 
' What cruel work you make with Lady Morgan,' wrote 
Byron to Murray. ' You should recollect that she is a 
woman ; though, to be sure, they are now and then very 
provoking, still as authoresses they can do no great harm ; 
and I think it a pity so much good invective should have 
been laid out upon her, when there is such a fine field of 
us Jacobin gentlemen for you to work upon.' The Regent 
himself, according to Lady Charleville's report, had said 

of Croker : ' D d blackguard to abuse a woman ; 

couldn't he let her France alone, if it be all lies, and 
read her novels, and thank her, by Jasus, for being a 
ffood Irishwoman ? ' 

Lady Morgan, as presently appeared, was not only 
quite able to defend herself, but to give as good as she 
got. Peel, in a letter to Croker, says : ' Lady Morgan 
vows vengeance against you as the supposed author of the 
article in the Qiiarterly^ in which her atheism, profanity, 
indecency, and ignorance are exposed. You are to be 
the hero of some novel of which she is about to be 
delivered. I hope she has not heard of your predilection 
for angling, and that she will not describe you as she 
describes one of her heroes, as " seated in his piscatory 
corner, intent on the destruction of the finny tribe."' 
134 



LADY MORGAN 

' Lady Morgan,"' it seems, replies Croker, ' is resolved to 
make me read one of her novels. I hope I shall feel 
interested enough to learn the language. I wrote the 
first part of the article in question, but was called away 
to Ireland when it was in the press ; and I am sorry to 
say that some blunders crept in accidentally, and one or 
two were premeditatedly added, which, however, I do not 
think Lady Morgan knows enough of either English, 
French, or Latin to find out. If she goes on, we shall 
have sport."* 

Early in 1818 Colburn wrote to suggest that the 
Morgans should proceed to Italy with a view to col- 
laborating in a book on that country, and offered them 
the handsome sum of oC'SOOO for the copyright. By 
this time Sir Charles had lost most of his practice, 
owing to his publication of a scientific work. The Out- 
lines of the Physiology of Life, which was considered 
objectionably heterodox by the Dublin public. There 
was no obstacle, therefore, to his leaving home for a 
lengthened period, and joining his wife in her literary 
labours. In May, the pair journeyed to London en 
route for the South, Lady Morgan taking with her the 
nearly finished manuscript of a new novel, Florence 
Macarthy. With his first reading of this book Colburn 
was so charmed, that he presented the author with a fine 
parure of amethysts as a tribute of admiration. 

According to the testimony of impartial witnesses, 
Lady Morgan made as decided a social success in Italy as 
she had done a couple of years earlier in France. Moore, 
who met the couple in Florence, notes in his diary for 
October 1819: 'Went to see Sir Charles and Lady 
Morgan ; her success everywhere astonishing. Camac 
was last night at the Countess of Albany's (the Pre- 

135 



LADY MORGAN 

tender's wife and Alfieri's), and saw Lady Morgan there 
in the seat of honour, quite the queen of the room.' In 
Rome the same appreciation awaited her. ' The Duchess 
of Devonshire,' writes her ladyship, ' is unceasing in her 
attentions. Cardinal Fesche (Bonaparte's uncle) is quite 
my beau. . . . Madame Mere (Napoleon's mother) sent 
to say she would be glad to see me ; we were received 
quite in an imperial style. I never saw so fine an old 
lady — still quite handsome. The pictures of her sons 
hung round the room, all in royal robes, and her 
daughters and grandchildren, and at the head of them 
all, old Mr. Bonaparte. She is full of sense, feeling, and 
spirit, and not the least what I expected — vulgar.' 

Florence Macarthy was published during its author's 
absence abroad. The heroine. Lady Clancare, a novelist 
and politician, a beauty and a wit, is obviously intended 
for Lady Morgan herself, while Lady Abercorn figures 
again under the title of Lady Dunore. But the most 
striking of all the character-portraits is Counsellor Con 
Crawley, who was sketched from Lady Morgan's old 
enemy, John Wilson Croker. According to Moore, Croker 
winced more under this caricature than under any of the 
direct attacks which were made upon him. Con Crawley, 
we are told, was of a bilious, saturnine constitution, 
even his talent being but the result of disease. These 
physical disadvantages, combined with an education 
* whose object was pretension, and whose principle was 
arrogance, made him at once a thing fearful and pitiable, 
at war with its species and itself, ready to crush in man- 
hood as to sting in the cradle, and leading his overween- 
ing ambition to pursue its object by ways dark and 
hidden — safe from the penalty of crime, and exposed only 
to the obloquy which he laughed to scorn. If ever there 
136 



LADY MORGAN 

was a man formed alike by nature and education to 
betray the land which gave him birth, and to act openly 
as the pander of political corruption, or secretly as the 
agent of defamation ; who would stoop to seek his fortune 
by effecting the fall of a frail woman, or would strive to 
advance it by stabbing the character of an honest one ; 
who could crush aspiring merit behind the ambuscade of 
anonymous security, while he came forward openly in 
defence of the vileness which rank sanctified and influence 
protected — that man was Conway Crawley.' 

The truth of the portraiture of the whole Crawley 
family — exaggerated as it may seem in modern eyes — 
was at once recognised by Lady Morgan's countrymen. 
Sir Jonah Barrington, an undisputed authority on Irish 
manners and character, writes : ' The Crawleys are super- 
lative, and suffice to bring before my vision, in their full 
colouring, and almost without a variation, persons and 
incidents whom and which I have many a time encoun- 
tered.'' Again, Owen Maddyn, who was by no means 
prejudiced in Lady Morgan's favour, admits that her 
attack on Croker had much effect in its day, and was 
written on the model of the Irish school of invective 
furnished by Flood and Grattan. As a novelist, he held 
that she pointed the way to Lever, and adds : ' The 
rattling vivacity of the Irish character, its ebullient 
spirit, and its wrathful eloquence of sentiment and 
language, she well portrayed ; one can smell the potheen 
and turf smoke even in her pictures of a boudoir.' In 
this sentence are summed up the leading characteristics, 
not only of Florence Macarthy^ but of all Lady Morgan's 
national romances. 

Italy was published simultaneously in London and 
Paris in June, 1821, and produced an even greater sensa- 

137 



LADY MORGAN 

tion than the work on France, though Croker declared 
that it fell dead from the press, and devoted the greater 
part of his 'review'' in the Quarterly to an analysis 
of Colburn's methods of advertisement. Criticism of a 
penal kind, he explained, was not called for, because, 
' in the first place, we are convinced that this woman is 
wholly incorrigihle\ secondly, we hope that her indelicacy, 
vanity, and malignity are inimitable, and that, therefore, 
her example is very little dangerous ; and thirdly, though 
every page teems with errors of all kinds, from the most 
disgusting to the most ludicrous, they are smothered in 
such Boeotian dulness that they can do no harm."* In 
curious contrast to this professional criticism is a passage 
in one of Byron"'s letters to Moore. ' Lady Morgan,' 
writes the poet, ' in a really excellent book, I assure you, 
on Italy, calls Venice an ocean Rome ; I have the very 
same expression in Foscari, and yet you know that the 
play was written months ago, and sent to England ; the 
Italy I received only on the 16th. . . . When you write 
to Lady Morgan, will you thank her for her handsome 
speeches in her book about my books ? Her work is fear- 
less and excellent on the subject of Italy — pray tell her 
so — and I know the country. I wish she had fallen in 
with me-, I could have told her a thing or two that would 
have confirmed her positions.' 

Almost simultaneously with the appearance of Italy, 
Colburn printed in his New Monthly Magazine a long, 
vehement, and rather incoherent attack by Lady Morgan 
upon her critics. The editor, Thomas Campbell, ex- 
plained in an indignant letter to the Times, that the 
article had been inserted by the proprietor without being 
first submitted to the editorial eye, and that he was in 
no way responsible for its contents. Colburn also wrote 
138 



LADY MORGAN 

to the Times to refute the Quarterly reviewer's state- 
ments regarding the sales of Italy, and publicly to 
declare his entire satisfaction at the result of the under- 
taking, and his willingness to receive from the author 
another work of equal interest on the same terms. In 
short, never was a book worse reviewed or better adver- 
tised. 

The next venture of the indefatigable Lady Morgan, 
who felt herself capable of dealing with any subject, no 
matter how little she might know of it, was a Life of 
Salvator Rosa. This, which was her own favourite 
among all her books, is a rather imaginative work, 
which hardly comes up to modern biographical stan- 
dards. The author seems to have been influenced in 
her choice of a subject rather by the patriotic character 
of Salvator Rosa than by his artistic attainments. Lady 
Morgan was once asked by a fellow- writer where she got 
her facts, to which she replied, ' We all imagine our facts, 
you know — and then happily forget them ; it is to be 
hoped our readers do the same.'' Nevertheless, she seems 
to have taken a good deal of trouble to ' get up ' the 
material for her biography ; it was in her treatment of 
it that she sometimes allowed her ardent Celtic imagina- 
tion to run away with her. About this time Colburn 
proposed that Sir Charles and Lady Morgan should 
contribute to his magazine, The Neiv Monthly, and 
offered them half as much again as his other writers, who 
were paid at the rate of sixteen guineas a sheet. For 
this periodical Lady Morgan wrote a long essay on 
Absenteeism and other articles, some of which were 
afterwards republished. 

In the spring of 1824 the Morgans came to London 
for the season, and went much into the literary society 

139 



LADY MORGAN 

that was dear to both their hearts. Lady Caroline 
Lamb took a violent fancy to Lady Morgan, to whom 
she confided her Byronic love-troubles, while Lady Cork, 
who still maintained a salon, did not neglect her old 
protegee. The rough notes kept by Lady Morgan of 
her social adventures are not usually of much interest 
or importance, as she had little faculty or inclination 
for Boswellising, but the following entry is worth 
quoting: — 

' Lady Cork said to me this morning when I called 

Miss a nice person, "Don't say nice, child, 'tis a 

bad word."" Once I said to Dr. Johnson, " Sir, that is a 
very nice person." "A nice person," he replied; " Avhat 
does that mean.? Elegant is now the fashionable term, 
but it will go out, and I see this stupid nice is to succeed 
to it. What does nice mean ? ' Look in my Dictionary ; 
you will see it means correct, precise." ' 

At Lydia White's famous soirees Lady Morgan met 
Sydney Smith, Washington Irving, Hallam, Miss Jane 
Porter, Anacreon Moore, and many other literary 
celebrities. Her own rooms were thronged with a band 
of young Italian revolutionaries, whose country had 
grown too hot to hold them, and who talked of erecting 
a statue to the liberty-loving Irishwoman when Italy 
should be free. Dublin naturally seemed rather dull 
after all the excitement and delights of a London season, 
but Lady Morgan, though she loved to grumble at her 
native city, had not yet thought of turning absentee 
herself. Her popularity with her countrymen (those 
of her own way of thinking) had suffered no diminution, 
and her national celebrity was proved by the following 
verse from a ballad which was sunff in the Dublin 

o 

streets : — 
140 



LADY MORGAN 

' Och, Dublin's city^ there 's no doubtin', 

Bates every city on the say ; 
'Tis there you '11 hear O'Connell spoutin'. 

And Lady Morgan making tay ; 
For 'tis the capital of the finest nation, 

Wid charmin' peasantry on a fruitful sod, 
Fightin' like divils for conciliation. 

An' hatin' each other for the love of God.' 

Our heroine was liard at work at this time upon the 
last of her Irish novels, The G'Briens and the O'' Flaherties , 
which was published early in 1827, and for the copyright 
of Avhich Colburn paid her £\^50. It was the most 
popular of all her works, especially with her own country- 
folk, and is distinguished by her favourite blend of 
politics, melodrama, local colour, and rough satire on 
the ruling classes. The- reviews as usual accused her 
of blasphemy and indecency, and so severe was the 
criticism in the Literary Gazette, then edited by Jerdan, 
that Colburn was stirred up to found a new literary 
weekly of his own, and, in conjunction with James Silk 
Buckingham, started the AthencEum. Jerdan had asserted 
in the course of his review that ' In all our readino- we 
never met with a description which tended so thoroughly 
to lower the female character. . . . Mrs, Behn and Mrs. 
Centlivre might be more unguarded ; but the gauze veil 
cannot hide the deformities, and Lady Morgan''s taste 
has not been of efficient power to filter into cleanliness 
the original pollution of her infected fountain.' Lady 
Morgan observes in her diary that she has a right to be 
judged by her peers, and threatens to summon a jury of 
matrons to say if they can detect one line in her pages 
that would tend to make any honest man her foe. 

There were other disadvantages attendant upon celebrity 

141 



LADY MORGAN 

than those caused by inimical reviewers. No foreigner 
of distinction thought a visit to Dublin complete with- 
out an introduction to our author, who figures in several 
contemporary memoirs, not always in a flattering light. 
That curious personage, Prince FLickler Muskau, was 
travelling through England and Ireland in 1828, and 
has left a little vignette of Lady Morgan in the pub- 
lished record of his journey. 'I was very eager,' he 
explains, ' to make the acquaintance of a lady whom 
I rate so highly as an authoress. I found her, however, 
very different from what I had pictured to myself. She 
is a little, frivolous, lively woman, apparently between 
thirty and forty, neither pretty nor ugly, but by no 
means inclined to resign all claims to the former, and 
with really fine expressive eyes. She has no idea of 
mauvaise honte or embarrassment ; her manners are not 
the most refined, and affect the aisance and levity of the 
fashionable world, which, however, do not sit calmly or 
naturally upon her. She has the English weakness of 
talking incessantly of fashionable acquaintances, and try- 
ing to pose for very recliercM, to a degree quite unworthy 
of a woman of such distinguished talents ; she is not at 
all aware how she thus underrates herself.' The Quarterly 
Review seized upon this passage with malicious delight. 
The prince, as the reviewer points out, had dropped one 
lump of sugar into his bowl of gall ; he had guessed Lady 
Morgan's age at between thirty and forty. ' Miss Owen- 
son,' comments the writer, who was probably Croker, 
' was an established authoress six-and-twenty years ago ; 
and if any lady, player's daughter or not, knew what slie 
knew when she published her first work at eight or nine 
years of age (which Miss Owenson must have been at 
that time according to the prince's calculation), she was 
142 



LADY MORGAN 

undoubtedly such a juvenile prodigy as would be quite 
worthy to make a case for the Gcntlemmis Magazine.'' 

Another observer, who was present at some of the 
Castle festivities, and who had long pictured Lady 
Morgan in imagination as a sylphlike and romantic 
person, has left on record his amazement when the 
celebrated lady stood before him. ' She certainly formed 
a strange figure in the midst of that dazzling scene of 
beauty and splendour. Every female present wore feathers 
and trains ; but Lady Morgan scorned both appendages. 
Hardly more than four feet high, with a spine not 
quite straight, slightly uneven shoulders and eyes, Lady 
Morgan glided about in a close-cropped wig, bound with 
a fillet of gold, her large face all animation, and with a 
witty word for everybody. I afterwards saw her at the 
theatre, where she was cheered enthusiastically. Her 
dress was different from the former occasion, but not less 
original. A red Celtic cloak, fastened by a rich gold 
fibula, or Irish Tara brooch, imparted to her little lady- 
ship a gorgeous and withal a picturesque appearance, 
which antecedent associations considerably strengthened.'' 

In 1829 The Booh of the Boudoir was published, with 
a preface in which Lady Morgan gives the following- 
naive account of its genesis: 'I was just setting off to 
Ireland — the horses literally putting-to — when Mr. 
Colburn arrived with his flattering proposition [for a 
new book]. Taking up a scrubby manuscript volume 
which the servant was about to thrust into the pocket of 
the carriage, he asked what was that. I said it was one of 
my volumes of odds and ends, and read him my last entry. 
" This is the very thing," he said, and carried it off with 
him.' The book was correctly described as a volume of 
odds and ends, and was hardly worth preserving in a 

143 



LADY MORGAN 

permanent shape, though it contains one or two interest- 
ing autobiographical scraps, such as the account of My 
First Rout, from which a quotation has already been 
given. A writer in Blackzoood reviewed the work in a 
vein of ironical admiration, professing to be much im- 
pressed by the author's knowledge of metaphysics as 
exemplified in such a sentence as : ' The idea of cause 
is a consequence of our consciousness of the force we 
exert in subjecting externals to the changes dictated 
by our volition.' Unable to keep up the laudatory 
strain, even in joke, the reviewer (his style points to 
Christopher North) calls a literary friend to his assist- 
ance, who takes the opposite view, and declares that the 
book is ' a tawdry tissue of tedious trumpery ; a tessel- 
lated texture of threadbare thievery ; a trifling transcript 
of trite twaddle and trapessing tittle-tattle. . . . Like 
everything that falls from her pen, it is pert, shallow, 
and conceited, a farrago of ignorance, indecency, and 
blasphemy, a tag-rag and bob-tail style of writing — like 
a harlequin's jacket.' 

Lady Morgan bobbed up as irrepressibly as ever from 
under this torrent of (so-called) criticism, made a tour 
in France and Belgium for the purpose of writing more 
' trapessing tittle-tattle,' and on her return to London, 
such were the profits on blasphemy and indecency, 
bought her first carriage. This equipage was a source 
of much amusement to her friends in Dublin, 'Neither 
she nor Sir Charles,' we are told, ' knew the difference 
between a good carriage and a bad one — a carriage was 
a carriage to them. It was never known where this 
vehicle was bought, except that Lady Morgan declared 
it came from the first carriage-builder in London. In 
shape it was like a grasshopper, as well as in colour. 
144 



LADY MORGAN 

Very high and very springy, with enormous wheels, it 
was difficult to get into, and dangerous to get out of. 
Sir Charles, who never in his life before had mounted a 
coach-box, was persuaded by his wife to drive his own 
carriage. He was extremely short-sighted, and wore 
large green spectacles out of doors. His costume was 
a coat much trimmed with fur, and heavily braided. 
James Grant, the tall Irish footman, in the brightest of 
red plush, sat beside him, his office being to jump down 
whenever anybody was knocked down, or run over, for 
Sir Charles drove as it pleased God. The horse was 
mercifully a very quiet animal, and much too small for 
the carriage, or the mischief would have been worse. 
Lady Morgan, in the large bonnet of the period, and a 
cloak lined with fur hanging over the back of the 
carriage, gave, as she conceived, the crowning grace to 
a neat and elegant turn-out. The only drawback to 
her satisfaction was the alarm caused by Sir Charles's 
driving ; and she was incessantly springing up to adjure 
him to take care, to which he would reply with warmth, 
after the manner of husbands.' 

In 1830 Lady Morgan pubhshed her France (1829-30). 
This book was not a commission, but she had told 
Colburn that she was writing it, and as he made her no 
definite offer, she opened negotiations with the firm of 
Saunders and Otley. Colburn, who looked upon her as 
his special property, was furious at her desertion, and 
informed her that if she did not at once break off with 
Saunders and Otley, it would be no less detrimental to 
her literary than to her pecuniary interest. Undismayed 
by this threat, Lady Morgan accepted the offer of a 
thousand pounds made her by the rival firm. Colburn, 
who was a power in the literary market, kept his word. 
K 145 



LADY MORGAN 

He advertised in his own periodicals ' Lady Morgan at 
Half-price/ and stated publicly that in consequence of 
the losses he had sustained by her former works, he had 
declined her new book, and that copies of all her publi- 
cations might be had at half-price. In consequence of 
these and other machinations, the new France, which was 
at least as good a book as the old one, fell flat, and the 
unfortunate publishers were only able to make one pay- 
ment of £5Q0. They tried to get their contract can- 
celled in court, and Colburn, who was called as a witness, 
admitted that he had done his best to injure Lady 
Morgan's literary reputation. Eventually, the matter 
was compromised, Saunders and Otley being allowed to 
publish Lady Morgan's next book, Dramatic Scenes and 
Sketches, as some compensation for their loss; but of 
this, too, they failed to make a success. 

The reviews of France were few and slighting, the 
wickedest and most amusing being by Theodore Hook. 
He quotes with glee the author's complacent record that 
she was compared to Moliere by the Parisians, and that 
she had seen in a ' poetry-book ' the following lines : — 

' Slendal {sic), Morgan, Schlegel — ne vous effrayez pas — 
Muses ! ce sont des uoms fameux dans nos climats.' 

' Her ladyship,' continues Theodore, ' went to dine with 
one of those spectacle and sealing-wax barons, Roth- 
schild, at Paris ; where never was such a dinner, " no 
catsup and walnut pickle, but a mayonese fried in ice, 
like Ninon's description of Seveigne's {sic) heart," and to 
all this fine show she was led out by Rothschild himself. 
After the soup she took an opportunity of praising the 
cook, of whom she had heard much. " Eh bien," says 
146 



LADY MORGAN 

Rothschild, laughing, as well he might, "he on his side 
has also relished your works, and here is a proof of it." 
"I really blush,"" says Miladi, "like Sterne's accusing 
spirit, as I give in the fact — but — he pointed to a column 
of the most ingenious confectionery architecture, on which 
my name was inscribed in spun sugar." There was a thing 
— Lady Morgan in spun sugar ! And what does the 
reader think her ladyship did ? She shall tell in her 
own dear words. " All I could do under my triumphant 
emotion I did. I begged to be introduced to the cele- 
brated and flattering artist." It is a fact — to the cook ; 
and another fact, which only shows that the Hebrew 
baron is a Jew (Tesprit, is that after coffee, the cook 
actually came up, and was presented to her. " He," says 
her ladyship, " was a well-bred gentleman, perfectly free 
from pedantry, and when we had mutually compli- 
mented each other on our respective works, he boAved 
himself out." ' 

In spite of her egoism and her many absurdities, 
it seems clear from contemporary evidence that in 
London, Avhere she usually appeared during the season. 
Lady Morgan had a following. The names of most of the 
literary celebrities of the day appear amid the disjointed 
jottings of her diary. We hear of ' that egregious 
coxcomb DTsraeli, outraging the privilege a young man 
has of being absurd ' ; and Sydney Smith * so natural, 
so bon enfant, so little of a wit title ' ; and Mrs. Bulwer- 
Lytton, handsome, insolent, and unamiable ; and Allan 
Cunningham, ' immense fun ' ; and Thomas Hood, ' a 
grave-looking personage, the picture of ill-health ' ; and 
her old critical enemy. Lord Jeffrey, with Avhom Lady 
Morgan started a violent flirtation. ' When he comes 
to Ireland,"* she writes, ' we are to go to Donnybrook 

147 



LADY MORGAN 

Fair together; in short, having cut me down with his 
tomahawk as a reviewer, lie smothers me with roses as 
a man. I ahvays say of my enemies before we meet, 
" Let me at them." ' 

The other literary women were naturally the chief 
object of interest to her. Lady Morgan seems to have 
been fairly free from professional jealousy, though she 
hated her countrywoman, Lady Blessington, with a deadly 
hatred. Mrs. Gore, then one of the most fashionable 
novelists, she finds ' a pleasant little rondclette of a woman, 
something of my own style. We talked and laughed 
together, as good-natured women do, and agreed upon 
many points.' The learned Mrs. Somerville is described 
as 'a simple, little, middle-aged woman. Had she not 
been presented to me by name and reputation, I should 
have said she was one of the respectable twaddling 
matrons one meets at every ball, dressed in a snug 
mulberry velvet gown, and a little cap with a red flower. 
I asked her how she could descend from the stars to mix 
among us. She said she was obliged to go out with a 
daughter. From the glimpse of her last night, I should 
say there was no imagination, no deep moral philosophy, 
though a great deal of scientific lore, and a great deal of 
bonhomie.'' For ' poor dear Jane Porter,' the author of 
Scottish Chief's, Lady Morgan felt the natural contempt 
of a ' showy woman "* for one who looks like a * shabby 
canoness.' ' Miss Porter,' she records, ' told me she was 
taken for me the other night, and talked to as such by a 
party of Americans. She is tall, lank, lean, and lacka- 
daisical, dressed in the deepest black, with a battered 
black gauze hat, and the air of a regular Melpomene. I 
am the reverse of all this, and sans vanity, the best-dressed 
woman wherever I go. Last night I wore a blue satin, 
148 



LADY MORGAN 

trimmed fully with magnificent point-lacc, and stomacher 
a la Sev'igiie, light blue velvet hat and feathers, with an 
aigrette of sapphires and diamonds.*" As Lady Morgan at 
this time was nearer sixty than fifty, rouged liberally, and 
made all her own dresses, her appearance in the costume 
above described must at least have been remarkable. 

Lady Morgan's last novel, a Belgian story called The 
Princess, or the Beguine, was published by Bentley in 
1834, and for the first edition she received i?350, a sad 
falling-off from the prices received in former days. As 
her popularity waned, she grew discontented with life in 
Dublin, 'the wretched capital of wretched Ireland,' as 
she calls it, and in a moment of mental depression she 
entered the characteristic query, ' Cui bono ? ' in her diary. 
To the same faithful volume she confided complaints even 
of her beloved Morgan, but the fact that she could find 
nothing worse to reproach him with than a disinclination 
for fresh air and exercise, speaks volumes for his marital 
virtue. A more serious trouble came from failing eyesight, 
which in 1837 threatened to develop into total blindness. 
It was in this year, when things seemed at their darkest, 
that a pension of X^300 a year was conferred on her by 
Lord Melbourne, ' in recognition of her merits, literary and 
patriotic' It was probably this unexpected accession of 
income that decided the Morgans to leave Dublin, and 
spend the remainder of their days in London. They found 
a pleasant little house in William Street, Knightsbridge, 
a new residential quarter which was just growing up 
under the fostering care of Mr. Cubitt. Lady Morgan 
went 'into raptures over the pretty new quarter,' and 
wrote some articles on Pimlico in the Athenceum. She 
also got up a successful agitation for an entrance into 
Hyde Park at what is now known as Albert Gate. For 

149 



LADY MORGAN 

deserting Ireland, after receiving a pension for patriotism, 
and writing against the evils of Absenteeism, Lady 
Morgan was subjected to a good deal of sarcasm by her 
countrymen. But, as she pointed out, her property in 
Ireland was personal, not real, the tenant-farm of a 
drawing-room balcony, on which annual crops of migno- 
nette were raised for home consumption, being the only 
territorial possession that she had ever enjoyed. 

Lady Morgan's eyesight must have temporarily im- 
proved with her change of dwelling, for in 1839 the first 
part of her last work of any importance. Woman and her 
Master, was published by Colburn, to whom she had at 
last become reconciled. This book, which was never 
finished, was designed to prove, among other things, that 
in spite of the subordination in which women have been 
kept, and in spite of all the artificial difficulties that have 
been put in their way, not only have they never been 
conquered in spirit, but that they have always been the 
depositaries of the vital and leading ideas of the time. 
The book is more soberly written than most of Lady 
Morgan's works, but it would probably be regarded by 
the modern reader as dull and superficial. It was gener- 
ally believed that Sir Charles had assisted in its composi- 
tion, and few men have ever wielded a heavier pen. The 
pair only issued one more joint work. The Book WWiout 
a Name, which appeared in 1842, and consisted chiefly 
of articles and sketches that had already been published 
in the magazines. 

The Morgans now found their chief occupation and 
amusement in the society which they attracted to their 
cheerful little house. One or two sketches of the pair, 
as they appeared in their later days, have been left by 
contemporaries. Chorley, an intimate friend, observes 
150 



LADY MORGAN 

that, like all the sceptics he ever approached, they were 
absurdly prejudiced, and proof against all new impres- 
sions. 'Neither of them, though both were literary and 
musical, could endure German literature and music, had 
got beyond the stale sarcasms of the Anti-Jacoh'm^ or 
could admit that there is glory for such men as Weber, 
Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, as well as for Cimarosa and 
Paisiello. . . . Her familiar conversation was a series of 
brilliant, egotistic, shrewd, and genial sallies, and she 
could be either caressing or impudent. In the matter of 
self-approbation she had no Statute of Limitation, but 
boasted of having taught Taglioni to dance an Irish jig, 
and declared that she had created the Irish novel, though 
in the next breath she would say that she was a child 
when Miss Edgeworth was a grown Avoman.' Her blunders 
were proverbial, as when she asked in all simplicity, 
* Who was Jeremy Taylor ? "" and on being presented to 
Mrs. Sarah Austin, complimented her on having written 
Pride and Prejiidice. 

Another friend, Abraham Hayward, used to say that 
Lady Morgan had been transplanted to London too late, 
and that she was never free of the corporation of fine 
ladies, though she saw a good deal of them. ' She errone- 
ously fancied that she was expected to entertain the 
company, be it what it might, and she was fond of telling 
stories in which she figured as the companion of the great, 
instead of confining herself to scenes of low Irish life, 
which she described inimitably. Lady Cork was accus- 
tomed to say, " I like Lady Morgan very much as an Irish 
blackguard, but I can't endure her as an English fine 
lady."' 

In 1843 Sir Charles died rather suddenly from heart 
disease. His wife mourned him sincerely, but not for 

151 



LADY MORGAN 

long in solitude. She found the anaesthetic for her grief 
in society, and after a few months of widowhood writes : 
' Everybody makes a point of having me out, and I am 
beginning to be familiarised with my great loss. London 
is the best place in the world for the happy and the 
unhappy ; there is a floating capital of sympathy for 
every human good or evil, I am a nobody, and yet what 
kindness I am daily receiving.' Again, in 1845, after her 
sister''s death, she notes in her diary : ' The world is my 
gin or opium ; I take it for a few hours per diem — excite- 
ment, intoxication, absence. I return to my desolate 
home, and wake to all the horrors of sobriety. . . . Yet 
I am accounted the agreeable rattle of the great ladies' 
coterie, and I talk pas mal to many clever men all day. 
. . . That Park near me, of which my beloved Morgan 
used to say, "It is ours more than the Queen's, we use 
it daily and enjoy it nightly" — that Park that I worked 
so hard to get an entrance into, I never walk in it ; it 
seems to me covered with crape.' 

Among the friends of Lady Morgan's old age were the 
Carter Halls, Hepworth Dixon, Miss Jewsbury, Hay ward, 
and Douglas Jerrold. Lord Campbell, old Rogers, and 
Cardinal Wiseman frequented her sob'ees, though with 
the last-named she had waged a pamphlet war over the 
authenticity of St. Peter's chair at Rome. Rogers was 
reported to be engaged to one of Lady Morgan's attrac- 
tive nieces, the Miss Clarkes, who often stayed with her. 
It was in allusion to this rumour that he said, ' Whenever 
my name is coupled with that of a young lady in this 
manner, I make it a point of honour to say I have been 
refused.' To the last, we are told. Lady Morgan pre- 
served the natural vivacity and aptness of repartee that 
had made her the delight of Dublin society half a century 
152 



LADY MORGAN 

before. ' I know I am vain,"* she said once to Mrs. Hall, 
' but I have a right to be. It is not put on and off" like 
my rouge ; it is always with me. ... I wrote books 
when your mothers worked samplers, and demanded 
freedom for Ireland when Dan O'Connell scrambled for 
gulls' eggs in the crags of Derrynane. , . . Look at the 
number of books I have written. Did ever woman move 
in a brighter sphere than I do .? I have three invitations 
to dinner to-day, one from a duchess, one from a countess, 
and the third from a diplomatist, a very witty man, who 
keeps the best society in London.' 

Lady Morgan was fond of boasting that she had 
supported herself since she was fourteen (for which read 
seventeen or eighteen), and insisted on the advantage of 
giving every girl a profession by which she could earn 
her living, if the need arose. Speaking to Mrs. Hall on 
the subject of some girls who had been suddenly bereft 
of fortune, she exclaimed : ' They do everything that is 
fashionable imperfectly ; their drawing, singing, dancing, 
and languages amount to nothing. They were educated 
to marry, and had they had time, they might have gone 
off' with, and hereafter from, husbands. I desire to give 
every girl, no matter her rank, a trade or profession. 
Cultivate what is necessary to the position she is born to ; 
cultivate all things in moderation, but one thing to per- 
fection, no matter what it is, for which she has a talent : 
give her a staff* to lay hold of; let her feel, "This will 
carry me through life without dependence." ' 

With the assistance of Miss Jewsbury Lady Morgan, in 
the last years of her life, prepared a volume of reminis- 
cences, which she called The Odd Volume. This, which 
was published in 1859, only deals with a short period of 
her career, and is of little literary interest. The A thenccum, 

153 



LADY MORGAN 

in the course of a laudatory review, observed that 'Lady 
Morgan had lived through the love, admiration, and 
malignity of three generations of men, and was, in short, 
a literary Ninon, who seemed as brisk and captivating in 
the year 1859 as when George was Prince, and the author 
of "Kate Kearney" divided the laureateship of society 
and song with Tom Moore/ 

Lady Morgan, though now an octogenarian, was by no 
means pleased at these remarks. She still prided herself 
on her fascinations, was never tired and never bored, and 
looked upon any one who died under a hundred years of 
age as a suicide. ' You have more strength and spirit, 
as well as more genius, than any of us," wrote Abraham 
Hay ward to her. 'We must go back to the brilliant 
women of the eighteenth century to find anything like a 
parallel to you and your soirtes.'' But bronchitis was an 
enemy with which even her high spirit was powerless to 
cope. She had an attack in 1858, but threw it off, and 
on Christmas Day gave a dinner, at which she told Irish 
stories with all her old vivacity, and sang ' The Night 
before Larry was Stretched." On St. Patrick's Day, 1859, 
she gave a musical matinee, but caught cold the following 
week, and after a short illness, died on April 16th. 

Thus ended the career of one of the most flattered and 
best abused women of the century. Held up as the 
Irish Madame de Stael by her admirers, and run down as 
a monster of impudence and iniquity by her enemies, it 
is no wonder that her character, by no means innately 
refined, became hardened, if not coarsened, by so un- 
enviable a notoriety. Still, to her credit be it remem- 
bered that she never lost a friend, and that she converted 
more than one impersonal enmity (as in the case of 
Jeffrey and Lockhart) into a personal friendship. In 
154 



LADY MORGAN 

spite of her passion for the society of the great, she 
wrote and worked throughout her whole career for the 
cause of liberty, and she was ever on the side of the 
oppressed. An incorrigible flirt before marriage, she 
developed into an irreproachable matron, while her 
natural frivolity and feather-headedness never tempted 
her to neglect her work, nor interfered with her faculty 
for making most advantageous business arrangements. 
' With all her frank vanity,' we are told, ' she had shrewd 
good sense, and she valued herself much more on her 
industry than on her genius, because the one, she said, she 
owed to her organisation, but the other was a virtue of 
her own rearing.'' It would be impossible to conclude a 
sketch of Lady Morgan more appropriately than by the 
following lines of Leigh Hunt, which she herself was fond 
of quoting, and in which her personal idiosyncrasies are 
pleasantly touched off: — 

' And dear Lady Morgan, see, see, when she comes. 
With her pulses all beating for freedom like drums, 
So Irish, so modish, so mixtish, so wild ; 
So committing herself as she talks — like a child. 
So trim, yet so easy — polite, yet high-hearted. 
That truth and she, try all she can, won't Ite parted ; 
She'll put you your fashions, your latest new air, 
And then talk so frankly, she '11 make you all stare.' 



155 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 




/' . 



foe-i' rr^^-M. 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

PART I 

Any fool, said a wise man, can write an interesting book 
if he will only take the trouble to set down exactly what 
he has seen and heard. Unfortunately, it is only a very 
special kind of fool who is capable of recording exactly 
what he sees and hears — a rare bird who flourishes 
perhaps once in a century, and is remembered long after 
wiser men are forgotten. It is not contended that the 
subject of this memoir was a fool in the crude sense of the 
word, though he was responsible for a good deal of folly ; 
but he was inspired by that impertinent curiosity, that 
happy lack of dignity, and that passion for the trivial 
and the intimate, which, when joined to a natural talent 
for observation and a picturesque narrative style, enable 
the possessor to illuminate a circle and a period in a 
fashion never achieved by the most learned lucubrations 
of the profoundest scholars. Thanks to his Boswellising 
powers, ' Namby-Pamby Willis,"* as he was called by his 
numerous enemies, has left an admirably vivid picture of 
the literary society of London in the ' thirties,' a picture 
that steadily increases in value as the period at which it 
was painted recedes into the past. 

Willis came of a family that had contrived, not un- 
successfully, to combine religion with journalism. His 

159 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

immediate forebears seem to have been persons of marked 
individuality, and his pedigree was, for the New World, 
of quite respectable antiquity. The founder of the 
family, George Willis, was born early in the seventeenth 
century, and emigrated to New England about 1730, 
where he worked at his trade of brickmaking and 
building. Our hero's great-grandfather was a patriotic 
sailmaker, who assisted at a certain historic entertain- 
ment, when tar, feathers, and hot tea were administered 
gratis to his Majesty's tax-collector at Boston. His wife, 
Abigail, was a lady of character and maxims, who saved 
some tea for her private use when three hundred cases 
were emptied into Boston Harbour, and exhorted her 
family never to eat brown bread when they could get 
white, and never to go in at the back door when they 
might go in at the front. The son of this worthy couple 
conducted a Whig newspaper in Boston during the 
Rebellion, and became one of the pioneer journalists of 
the West. His son, Nathaniel's sire, was invited, in 
1803, to start a newspaper at Portland, Maine, where the 
future Penciller was born in 1806, one year before his 
fellow-townsman Longfellow. 

A few years later, Mr. Willis returned to Boston, 
where, in 1816, he started the Boston Recorder, the first 
newspaper, he was accustomed to say, that had ever been 
run on religious lines. He seems to have been a respect- 
able, but narrow-minded man, who loved long devotions 
and many services, and looked upon dancing, card- 
playing and stage-plays as works of the Evil One. His 
redeeming points were a sense of humour and a keen 
appreciation of female beauty, which last characteristic 
he certainly bequeathed to his son. It was his custom 
to sit round the fire with his nine children on winter 
160 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

evenings, and tell them stories about the old Dutch 
tiles, representing New Testament scenes, with which 
the chimney-corner was lined. The success of these 
informal Scripture lessons led him to establish a religious 
paper for young people called The Yout/i's Companion, in 
which some of our hero's early verses appeared. His 
wife, Hannah Parker, is described as a charming woman, 
lively, impulsive, and emotional. Her son, Nathaniel, 
whose devotion to her never wavered, used to say, ' My 
veins are teeming with the quicksilver spirit my mother 
gave me."" 

Willis the younger was sent to school at Boston, 
where he had Emerson for a schoolfellow, and after- 
wards to the university of Yale, where he wrote much 
poetry, and was well received in the society of the place 
on account of his good looks, easy manners, and pre- 
cocious literary reputation. On leaving Yale, he was 
delivered of a volume of juvenile poems, and then settled 
down in Boston to four years' journalistic work. Samuel 
Goodrich, better known in England under his pseudonym 
of ' Peter Parley,' engaged him to edit some annuals and 
gift-books, an employment which the young man found 
particularly congenial. In his Recollections Peter Parley 
draws a comparison between his two contributors, Haw- 
thorne and Willis, and records that everything Willis 
wrote attracted immediate attention, while the early 
productions of Hawthorne passed almost unnoticed. 

In 1829 Willis started on his own account with the 
American Monthly Magazine, which had an existence of 
little more than two years. He announced that he could 
not afford to pay for contributions, as he expected only 
a small circulation, and he wrote most of the copy 
himself. Every month there were discursive, gossiping 
L 161 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

editorial articles in that ' personal ■* vein which has been 
worked with so much industry in our own day. He 
took his readers into his confidence, prattled about his 
japonica and his pastilles, and described his favourite bird, 
a scarlet trulian, and his dogs, Ugolino and L. E. L., 
who slept in the waste-paper basket. He professed to 
write with a bottle of Rudesheimer and a plate of olives 
at his elbow, and it was hinted that he ate fruit in summer 
with an amber-handled fork to keep his palm cool ! 

These youthful affectations had a peculiarly exas- 
perating effect upon men of a different type ; and Willis 
became the butt of the more old - fashioned critics, 
who vied with each other in inventing opprobrious 
epithets to shower upon the head of this young puppy of 
journalism. However, Nathaniel was not a person who 
could easily be suppressed, and he soon became one of 
the most popular magazine-writers of his time, his prose 
being described by an admirer as ' delicate and brief 
like a white jacket — transparent like a lump of sugar in 
champagne — soft-tempered like the sea-breeze at night.' 
Unfortunately, the magazines paid but little, even for 
prose of the above description, and Willis presently 
found himself in financial difficulties ; while, with all 
his acknowledged fascinations, he was unlucky in his 
first love-affair. He became engaged to a beautiful girl 
called Mary Benham, but her guardian broke off the 
match, and the lady, who seems to have had an inclina- 
tion for literary men, afterwards married Motley, the 
historian of the Dutch Republic. 

In 1831 the American Monthly Magazine ceased to 

appear, and Willis, leaving Boston and his creditors 

without regret, obtained the post of assistant-editor on 

the Nezo York Mirror^ a weekly paper devoted to 

162 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

literature, light fiction, and the fine arts. It was the 
property of Morris, author of the once world-famous 
song, ' Woodman, spare that Tree,' and the editor-in-chief 
was Theodore Fav, a novelist of some distinction. Soon 
after his appointment it was decided that Willis should 
be sent to Europe as foreign correspondent of his paper. 
A sum of about a hundred pounds was scraped together 
for his expenses, and it was arranged that he should 
write weekly letters at the rate of two guineas a letter. 
In the autumn of 1831 he sailed in a merchant-vessel for 
Havre, whence he journeyed to Paris in November. 
Here he spent the first five or six months of his tour, and 
here began the series of ' Pencillings by the Way,' a 
portion of which gained him rather an unwelcome noto- 
riety in English society by reason of the ' personalities ' 
it contained. When published in book form the Pencil- 
lings were considerably toned down, and the proper names 
were represented by initials, so that people who read 
them then for the first time wondered what all the 
excitement had been about. As the chapters which 
relate to England are of most interest to English readers, 
Willis's continental adventures need only be briefly 
noticed. The extracts here quoted are taken from the 
original letters as they appeared in the New York Mirror^ 
wliich differ in many respects from the version that 
was published in London after the attack by the 
Quarterly Reviexo. 

In Paris Willis found himself in his element, and was 
made much of by the Anglo-French community, which 
was then under the special patronage of Lafayette. One 
of the most interesting of his new acquaintances was the 
Countess Guiccioli, upon whose appearance and manners 
he comments with characteristic frankness. 

163 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

'I met the Guiccioli yesterday in the Tuileries,' he 
writes shortly after his arrival. ' She looks much 
younger than I anticipated, and is a handsome blonde, 
apparently about thirty. I am told by a gentle- 
man who knows her that she has become a great flirt, 
and is quite spoiled by admiration. The celebrity of 
Lord Byron's attachment would certainly make her a 
very desirable acquaintance were she much less pretty 
than she really is, and I am told her drawing-room is 
tiironged with lovers of all nations contending for a 
preference which, having once been given, should be 
buried, I think, for ever.' A little later he has himself 
been introduced to the Guiccioli, and he describes an 
interview which he has had with her, when the conversa- 
tion turned upon her friendship with Shelley. 

' She gave me one of his letters to herself as an auto- 
graph,' he narrates. ' She says he was at times a little 
crazy— ^M, as she expressed it — but there never was a 
nobler or a better man. Lord Byron, she says, loved 
him as a brother. . . . There were several miniatures of 
Byron hanging up in the room ; I asked her if any of 
them were perfect in the resemblance. " No," she said, 
" that is the most like him," taking down a miniature by 
an Italian artist, " ma'is il etait heaucoup plus beau — heau- 
coup — heaucoupy She reiterated the word with a very 
touching tenderness, and continued to look at the por- 
trait for some time. . . . She went on talking of the 
painters who had drawn Byron, and said the American, 
Wesfs, was the best likeness. I did not tell her that 
West's portrait of herself was excessively flattered. I 
am sure no one would know her, from the engraving at 
least. Her cheek-bones are high, her forehead is badly 
shaped, and altogether the frame of her features is 
164 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

decidedly ugly. She dresses in the worst taste too, and 
yet for all this, and poetry and celebrity aside, the 
countess is both a lovely and a fascinating woman, and 
one whom a man of sentiment would admire at this age 
very sincerely, but not for beauty ."' 

The cholera frightened Willis away from Paris in 
April, but before he left, the United States minister, 
Mr. Rives, appointed him honorary attache to his own 
embassy, a great social advantage to the young man, 
who was thereby enabled to obtain the entrte into court 
circles in every country that he visited. At the same 
time the appointment somewhat misled his numerous 
new acquaintances on the subject of his social position, 
while the 'spurious'' attacheship afterwards became a 
weapon in the hands of his enemies. However, for the 
time being, the young correspondent thoroughly enjoyed 
his novel experiences, and contrived to communicate his 
enjoyment to his readers. His letters were eagerly read 
by his countrymen, and are said to have been copied into 
no less than five hundred newspapers. He eschewed use- 
ful information, gave impressions rather than statistics, 
and was fairly successful in avoiding the style of the 
guide-book. The summer and autumn of 1832 were spent 
in northern Italy, Florence being the traveller's head- 
quarters. He had letters of introduction to half the 
Italian nobility, and was made welcome in the court 
circles of Tuscany. In the autumn he was flirting at the 
Baths of Lucca, and at this time he had formed a project 
of travelling to London by way of Switzerland. 

' In London,"* he writes to his sister, ' I mean to make 
arrangements with the magazines, and then live abroad 
altogether. It costs so little here, and one lives so 
luxuriously too, and there is so much to fill one's mind 

165 



NATHANIEL PAIIKER WILLIS 

and eye, that I think of returning to naked America 
with ever-increasing repugnance. I love mj country, 
but the ornamental is my vocation, and of this she has 
none."" This programme was changed, and Willis spent 
the winter between Rome, Florence, and Venice. Wher- 
ever he went he made friends, but his progress was in 
itself a feat of diplomacy, and few people dreamt that 
the dashing young attache depended for his living upon 
his contributions to a newspaper, payment for which did 
not always arrive with desirable punctuality. 'I have 
dined,' he writes to his mother, ' with a prince one day, 
and alone in a cook-shop the next.' He explains that 
he can live on about sixty pounds a year at Florence, 
paying four or five shillings a week for his rooms, break- 
fasting for fourpence, and dining quite magnificently for 
a shilling. 

In June 1833, Willis was invited by the officers of an 
American frigate to accompany them on a six months' 
cruise in the Mediterranean. This was far too good an 
offer to be refused, since it Avould have been impossible 
to get a peep at the East under more ideal conditions of 
travel. Willis's letters from Greece and Turkey are among 
the best and happiest that he wrote, for the weather was 
perfect, the company was pleasant (there were ladies on 
board), and the reception they met with wherever they 
weighed anchor was most hospitable ; while the Oriental 
mode of life appealed to our hero's highly-coloured, 
romantic taste. In the island of ^gina he was introduced 
to Byron's Maid of Athens, once the beautiful Teresa 
Makri, now plain Mrs. Black, with an ugly little boy, 
and a Scotch terrier that snapped at the traveller's 
heels. He describes the ci-devant Maid of Athens as 
a handsome woman, with a clear dark skin, and a nose 
166 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

and forehead that formed the straight line of the Greek 
model. 

' Her eyes are large,' he continues, ' and of a soft, 
liquid hazel, and this is her chief beauty. There is that 
looking out of the soul through them which Byron always 
described as constituting the loveliness that most moved 
him. . . . We met her as simple Mrs. Black, whose 
husband's terrier had worried us at the door, and we 
left her feeling that the poetry she called forth from 
the heart of Byron was her due by every law of love- 
liness.' 

By this time the fame of the Pcncillings had reached 
London ; and at Smyrna Willis found a letter awaiting 
him from the Morning Herald^ which contained an offer 
of the post of foreign correspondent at a salary of £^00 
a year. But as his letters would have to be mainly 
political, and as he might be expected to act as war- 
correspondent, which was scarcely in his line, he decided 
to refuse the offer. On leaving the frigate he loitered 
through Italy, Switzerland, and France to England, i 
arriving at Dover on June 1, 1834. While at Florence I ^ 
he had made the acquaintance of Walter Savage Landor, 
who had given him some valuable letters of introduc- 
tion to people in England, among them one to Lady 
Blessington. Landor also put into Willis's hands a 
package of books, whose temporary disappearance through 
some mismanagement roused the formidable wrath of the 
old poet. In his Letter to an Author., printed at the end 
of Pericles and Aspasia, Landor describes the transaction 
(which related to an American edition of the Imaginan/ 
Conversations), and continues : — 

' I regret the appearance of his book (the Pencillings 
hy the Way) more than the disappearance of mine. . . . 

167 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

My letter of presentation to Lady Blessington threw 
open (I am afraid) too many folding-doors, some of 
which have been left rather uncomfortably ajar. No 
doubt his celebrity as a poet, and his dignity as a 
diplomatist, would have procured him all those distinc- 
tions in society which he allowed so humble a person as 
myself the instrumentality of conferring. Greatly as I 
have been flattered by the visits of American gentlemen, 
I hope that for the future no penciller of similar com- 
position will deviate in my favour to the right hand of 
the road from Florence to Fiesole.'' 

The end of this storm in a teacup was that the books, 
which had safely arrived in New York, returned as safely 
to London, where they were handed over to their rightful 
owner, but not in time, as Willis complained, to keep 
him from going down to posterity astride the finis to 
Pericles and Aspasia. Long afterwards he expressed 
his hope that Landor's biographers would either let 
him slip off at Lethe's wharf, or else do him justice in 
a note. Before this unfortunate incident, Landor and 
Willis had corresponded on cordial terms. The old 
poet wrote to say how much he envied his correspondent 
the evenings he passed in the society of 'the most 
accomplished and graceful of all our fashionable world, 
my excellent friend, Lady Blessington,"" while the American 
could not sufficiently express his gratitude for the intro- 
duction to that lady, ' my lodestar and most valued 
friend,' as he called her, 'for whose acquaintance I am 
so much indebted to you, that you will find it difficult in 
your lifetime to diminish my obligations.'' 

Willis seems to have arrived in England prepared to 
like everything English, and he began by falling in love 
with the Ship Hotel at Dover, ' with its bells that would 
168 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

ring, doors that would shut, blazing coal fires [on June 1], 
and its landlady who spoke English, and was civil — a 
greater contrast to the Continent could hardly be 
imagined.'' The next morning he was in raptures over 
the coach that took him to London, with its light 
harness, four beautiful bays, and dashing coachman, who 
discussed the Opera, and hummed airs from the Puritani. 
He saw a hundred charming spots on the road that he 
coveted with quite a heartache, and even the little 
houses and gardens in the suburbs pleased his taste 
— there was such an aff'ectionateness in the outside of 
every one of them. Regent Street he declares to be the 
finest street he has ever seen, and he exclaims, 'The 
Toledo of Naples, the Corso of Rome, the Rue de la 
Paix, and the Boulevards of Paris are really nothing to 
Regent Street."* 

Willis called on Lady Blessington in the afternoon 
of the day after his arrival, but was informed that her 
ladyship was not yet down to breakfast. An hour later, 
however, he received a note from her inviting him to call 
the same evening at ten o'clock. She was then living at 
Seamore House, while D'Orsay had lodgings in Curzon 
Street. Willis tells us that he found a very beautiful 
woman exquisitely dressed, who looked on the sunny side 
of thirty, though she frankly owned to forty, and was, 
in fact, forty-five. Lady Blessington received the young 
American very cordially, introduced him to the magni- 
ficent D'Orsay, and plunged at once into literary talk. 
She was curious to know the degree of popularity 
enjoyed by English authors in America, more especially 
by Bulwer and D'lsraeli, both of whom she promised 
that he should meet at her house. 

' DTsraeli the elder,' she said, ' came here with his son 

169 



V 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

the other night. It would have delighted you to see the 
old man's pride in him. As he was going away, he patted 
him on the head, and said, "Take care of him, Lady 
Blessington, for my sake. He is a clever lad, but wants 
ballast. I am glad he has the honour to know you, for 
you will check him sometimes when I am away. . . .''"' 
D"'Israeli the younger is quite his own character of Vivian 
Grey, crowded with talent, but very soigne of his curls, 
and a bit of a coxcomb. There is no reverse about him, 
however, and he is the only joyous dandy I ever saw."* 
Then the conversation turned upon Byron, and Willis 
asked if Lady Blessington had known La Guiccioli. 
' No ; we were at Pisa when they were together,"* she 
replied. ' But though Lord Blessington had the greatest 
curiosity to see her, Lord Byron would never permit it. 
" She has a red head of her own," said he, " and don''t 
like to show it." Byron treated the poor creature 
dreadfully ill. She feared more than she loved him."" 

On concluding this account of his visit, Willis observes 
that there can be no objection to his publishing such 
personal descriptions and anecdotes in an American 
periodical, since ' the English just know of our exist- 
ence, and if they get an idea twice a year of our progress 
in politics, they are comparatively well informed. Our 
periodical literature is never even heard of. I mention 
this fact lest, at first thought, I might seem to have 
abused the hospitality or the frankness of those on 
whom letters of introduction have given me claims for 
civility." Alas, poor Willis ! He little thought that 
one of the most distinguished and most venomous of 
British critics would make a long arm across the 
Atlantic, and hold up his prattlings to ridicule and 
condemnation. 
170 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

The following evening our Fenciller met a distinguished 
company at Seamore House, the two Bulwers, Edward 
and Henry ; James Smith of ' Rejected Addresses' fame ; 
Fonblanque, the editor of the Examiner ; and the young 
Due de Richelieu. Of Fonblanque, Willis observes : ' I 
never saw a worse face, sallow, seamed, and hollow, his 
teeth irregular, his skin livid, his straight black hair 
uncombed. A hollow, croaking voice, and a small, fiery 
black eye, with a smile like a skeleton's, certainly did 
not improve his physiognomy."* Fonblanque, as might 
have been anticipated, did not at all appreciate this 
description of his personal defects, when it afterwards 
appeared in print. Edward Bulwer was quite unlike 
what Willis had expected. ' He is short,' he writes, 
' very much bent, slightly knock-kneed, and as ill- 
dressed a man for a gentleman as you will find in 
London. . . . He has a retreating forehead, large 
aquiline nose, immense red whiskers, and a mouth 
contradictory of all talent. A more good - natured, 
habitually smiling, nerveless expression could hardly be 
imagined.' Bulwer seems to have made up for his appear- 
ance by his high spirits, lover-like voice, and delightful 
conversation, some of which our Boswell has reported. 

' Smith asked Bulwer if he kept an amanuensis. " No," 
he said, " I scribble it all out myself, and send it to the 
press in a most ungentlemanlike hand, half print, half 
hieroglyphics, with all its imperfections on its head, and 
correct in the proof — very much to the dissatisfaction of 
the publisher, who sends me in a bill of =^16, 6s. 4d. for 
extra corrections. Then I am free to confess I don't 
know grammar. Lady Blessington, do you know 
grammar? There never was such a thing heard of 
before Lindley Murray. I wonder what they did for 

171 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

grammar before his day ! Oh, the delicious blunders 
one sees when they are irretrievable ! And the best of 
it is the critics never get hold of them. Thank Heaven 
for second editions, that one may scratch out one''s blots, 
and go down clean and gentlemanlike to posterity." 
Smith asked him if he had ever reviewed one of his 
own books. " No, but I could ! And then how I 
should like to recriminate, and defend myself indig- 
nantly ! I think I could be preciously severe. Depend 
upon it, nobody knows a book's faults so well as its 
author. I have a great idea of criticising my books for 
my posthumous memoirs. Shall I, Smith.? Shall I, 
Lady Blessington ? "" ' 

Willis fell into conversation with the good-natured, 
though gouty James Smith, who talked to him of 
America, and declared that there never was so delight- 
ful a fellow as Washington Irving. ' I was once,"* he 
said, ' taken down with him into the country by a mer- 
chant to dinner. Our friend stopped his carriage at the 
gate of his park, and asked if Ave would walk through 
the grounds to the house. Irving refused, and held me 
down by the coat-tails, so that we drove on to the house 
together, leaving our host to follow on foot. " I make it 
a principle,"" said Irving, "never to walk with a man 
through his own grounds. I have no idea of praising a 
thing whether I like it or not. You and I will do them 
to-morrow by ourselves." ■" 'The Rejected Addresses," 
continues Willis, ' got on his crutches about three o'clock 
in the morning, and I made my exit with the rest, thank- 
ing Heaven that, though in a strange country, my mother- 
tongue was the language of its men of genius.' 

One of the most interesting passages in the Pencillings 
is that in which Willis describes a breakfast at Crabb 
172 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

Robinson's chambers in the Temple, where he met 
Charles and Mary Lamb, a privilege which he seems 
thoroughly to have appreciated. ' I never in my life,** 
he declares, ' had an invitation more to my taste. The 
Essays of Elia are certainly the most charming things 
in the world, and it has been, for the last ten years, my 
highest compliment to the literary taste of a friend to 
present him with a copy. ... I arrived half an hour 
before Lamb, and had time to learn something of his 
peculiarities. Some family circumstances have tended 
to depress him of late years, and unless excited by 
convivial intercourse, he never shows a trace of what 
he once was. He is excessively given to mystifying 
his friends, and is never so delighted as when he has 
persuaded some one into a belief in one of his grave 
inventions. . . . There was a rap at the door at last, 
and enter a gentleman in black small - clothes and 
gaiters, short and very slight in his person, his hair 
just sprinkled with grey, a beautiful, deep-set, grey eye, 
aquiline nose, and a very indescribable mouth. His 
sister, whose literary reputation is very closely associated 
with her brother''s, came in after him. She is a small, 
bent figure, evidently a victim to ill-health, and hears 
with difficulty. Her face has been, I should think, a 
fine, handsome one, and her bright grey eye is still full 
of intelligence and fire. . . . 

' I had set a large arm-chair for Miss Lamb. " Don''t 
take it, Mary," said Lamb, pulling it away from her very 
gravely. ' It looks as if you were going to have a tooth 
drawn.'' The conversation was very local, but perhaps 
in this way I saw more of the author, for his manner of 
speaking of their mutual friends, and the quaint humour 
with which he complained of one, and spoke well of 

173 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

another, was so completely in the vein of his inimitable 
writings, that I could have fancied myself listening to an 
audible composition of new Elia. Nothing could be more 
delightful than the kindness and affection between the 
brother and sister, though Lamb was continually taking 
advantage of her deafness to mystify her on every topic 
that was started. " Poor Mary,'' he said, " she hears all 
of an epigram but the point." " What are you saying of 
me, Charles?" she asked. " Mr. Willis," said he, raising 
his voice, " admires your Confessions of a Drunliard very 
much, and I was saying that it was no merit of yours 
that you understood the subject." 

'The conversation presently turned upon literary 
topics, and Lamb observed : " I don't know much of 
your American authors. Mary, there, devours Cooper's 
novels with a ravenous appetite with which I have no 
sympathy. The only American book I ever read twice 
was the Journal of Edward Woolman, a Quaker preacher 
and tinker, whose character is one of the finest I ever met. 
He tells a story or two about negro slaves that brought 
the tears into my eyes. I can read no prose now, though 
Hazlitt sometimes, to be sure — but then Hazlitt is worth 
all the modern prose-writers put together." I mentioned 
having bought a copy of Elia the last day I was in 
America, to send as a parting gift to one of the most 
lovely and talented women in the country. " What did 
you give for it?" asked Lamb. "About seven-and-six." 
" Permit me to pay you that," said he, and with the 
utmost earnestness he counted the money out on the 
table. " I never yet wrote anything that would sell," he 
continued. " I am the publisher's ruin. My last poem 
won't sell a copy. Have you seen it, Mr. Willis ? " I 
had not. "It is only eighteenpence, and I'll give you 

m 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

sixpence towards it," and he described to me where I 
should find it sticking up in a shop-window in the Strand. 

' Lamb ate nothing, and complained in a querulous 
tone of the veal pie. There was a kind of potted fish, 
which he had expected that our friend would procure 
for him. He inquired whether there was not a morsel 
left in the bottom of the last pot. Mr. Robinson was 
not sure. "Send and see," said Lamb, "and if the pot has 
been cleaned, bring me the lid. I think the sight of it 
would do me good." The cover was brought, upon which 
there was a picture of the fish. Lamb kissed it with a 
reproachful look at his friend, and then left the table and 
began to wander round the room with a broken, uncer- 
tain step, as if he almost forgot to put one leg before 
the other. His sister rose after a while, and commenced 
walking up and down in the same manner on the opposite 
side of the table, and in the course of half an hour they 
took their leave."* Landor, in commenting on this pas- 
sage, says it is evident that Willis ' fidgeted the Lambs,' 
and seems rather unaccountably annoyed at his having 
alluded to Crabb Robinson simply as ' a barrister.' 

In London Willis appears to have fallen upon his feet 
from the very first. To the end of his life he looked 
back upon his first two years in England as the happiest 
and most successful period in his whole career. It was 
small wonder that he became a little dazzled and intoxi- 
cated by the brilliancy of his surroundings, which spoilt 
him for the homelier conditions of American life. ' What 
a star is mine,' he wrote to his sister Julia, three days 
after landing at Dover. ' All the best society of London 
exclusives is now open to me — me ! without a sou in my 
pocket beyond what my pen brings me, and with not 
only no influence from friends at home, but with a world 

175 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

of envy and slander at my back. ... In a literary way I 
have already had offers from the Coiirt Mag'azJ7ie,ihe Metro- 
politan, and the Nezo Monthly^ of the first price for my 
articles. I sent a short tale, written in one day, to the Court 
Magazine, and they gave me eight guineas for it at once. 
I lodge in Cavendish Square, the most fashionable part of 
the town, paying a guinea a week for my lodgings, and 
am as well oft' as if I had been the son of the President.'' 

Willis was constantly at Lady Blessington's house, 
where he met some of the best masculine society of the 
day. At one dinner-party among his fellow-guests were 
D"'Israeli, Bulwer, Procter (Barry Cornwall), Lord 
Durham, and Sir Martin Shee. It was his first sight of 
Dizzy, whom he found looking out of the window with 
the last rays of sunlight reflected on the gorgeous gold 
flowers of an embroidered waistcoat. A white stick with 
a black cord and tassel, and a quantity of chains about 
his neck and pocket, rendered him rather a conspicuous 
object. ' D''Israeli,*' says our chronicler, 'has one of the 
most remarkable faces I ever saw. He is vividly pale, 
and but for the energy of his action and the strength of 
his lungs, would seem a victim to consumption. His eye 
is as black as Erebus, and has the most mocking, lying- 
in-wait expression conceivable. His mouth is alive with 
a kind of impatient nervousness, and when he has burst 
forth with a particularly successful cataract of expression, 
it assumes a curl of triumphant scorn that would be 
worthy of INIephistopheles. A thick, heavy mass of 
jet-black ringlets falls over his left cheek almost to his 
collarless stock, while on the right temple it is parted and 
put away with the smooth carefulness of a girl's, and 
shines most unctuously with " thy incomparable oil, 
Macassar."' Willis was always interested in dress, 
176 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

being himself a born dandy, and he was inclined to judge 
a man by the cut of his coat and the set of his hat. On 
this occasion he remarks that Bulwer was very badly 
dressed as usual, while Count D'Orsay was very splendid, 
but quite indefinable. 'He seemed showily dressed till 
you looked to particulars, and then it seemed only a 
simple thing well fitted to a very magnificent person.' 

The conversation ran at first on Sir Henry Taylor's 
new play, Philip van Artevelde, which the company 
thought overrated, and then passed to Beckford, of Vathek 
fame, who had already retired from the world, and was 
living at Bath in his usual eccentric fashion. Dizzy was 
the only person present who had met him, and, declares 
AVillis, 'I might as well attempt to gather up the foam 
of the sea as to convey an idea of the extraordinary 
language in which he clothed his description. There 
were at least five words in every sentence which must 
have been very much astonished at the use to which they 
were put, and yet no others apparently could so well have 
conveyed his idea. He talked like a racehorse approach- 
ing the winning-post, every muscle in action, and the 
utmost energy of expression flowing out in every burst. 
It is a great pity he is not in Parliament.' 

At midnight Lady Blessington left the table, when the 
conversation took a political turn, but DTsraeli soon 
dashed oft' again with a story of an Irish dragoon who 
was killed in the Peninsular. ' His arm was shot off, and 
he was bleeding to death. When told he could not live, 
he called for a large silver goblet, out of which he usually 
drank his claret. He held it to the gushing artery, and 
filled it to the brim, then poured it slowly out upon the 
ground, saying, " If that had been shed for old Ireland." 
You can have no idea how thrillingly this little story Avas 
M 17T 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

told. Fonblanque, however, who is a cold political 
satirist, could see nothing in a man''s "decanting his 
claret " that was in the least sublime, so " Vivian Grey " 
got into a passion, and for a while was silent/ 

Willis was now fairly launched in London society, 
literary and fashionable. He went to the Opera to hear 
Grisi, then young and pretty, and Lady Blessington 
pointed out the beautiful Mrs. Norton, looking like a 
queen, and Lord Brougham flirting desperately with a 
lovely woman, ' his mouth going with the convulsive 
twitch that so disfigures him, and his most unsightly of 
pug-noses in the strongest relief against the red lining of 
the box."" He breakfasted with ' Barry Cornwall,' whose 
poetry he greatly admired, and was introduced to the 
charming Mrs. Procter and the ' yellow-tressed Adelaide,"' 
then only eight or nine years old. Procter gave his 
visitor a volume of his own poems, and told him anecdotes 
of the various authors he had known, Hazlitt, Lamb, 
Keats, and Shelley. Another interesting entertainment 
was an evening party at Edward Bulwer"'s house. Willis 
arrived at eleven, and found his hostess alone, playing 
with a King Charles' spaniel, while she awaited her guests. 

' The author of Pelliam^ he writes, ' is a younger son, 
and depends on his writings for a livelihood ; and truly, 
measuring works of fancy by what they will bring, a 
glance round his luxurious rooms is worth reams of puff's 
in the Quarterlies. He lives in the heart of fashionable 
London, entertains a great deal, and is expensive in all 
his habits, and for this pay Messrs. Cliffbrd, Pelham, and 
Aram — most excellent bankers. As I looked at the 
beautiful woman before me, waiting to receive the rank 
and fashion of London, I thought that close-fisted old 
literature never had better reason for his partial largess/ 
178 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

Willis was astonished at the neglect with which the 
female portion of the assemblage was treated, no young 
man ever speaking to a young lady except to ask her to 
dance. 'There they sit with their mammas,"' he observes, 
' their hands before them in the received attitude ; and if 
there happens to be no dancing, looking at a print, or 
eating an ice, is for them the most entertaining circum- 
stance of the evening. Late in the evening a charming 
girl, who is the reigning belle of Naples, came in with her 
mother from the Opera, and I made this same remark to 
her. " I detest England for that very reason,"" she said 
frankly. " It is the fashion in London for young men to 
prefer everything to the society of women. They have 
their clubs, tlieir horses, their rowing matches, their 
hunting, and everything else is a hore ! How different 
are the same men at Naples ! They can never get enough 
of one there."'"' . . . She mentioned several of the beaux 
of last winter who had returned to England. " Here 
have I been in London a month, and these very men who 
were at my side all day on the Strada Nuova, and all 
but fighting to dance three times with me of an evening, 
have only left their cards. Not because they care less 
about me, but because it is not the fashion — it would 
be talked about at the clubs; it is hnowing to let us 
alone." "" 

There were only three men at the party, according to 
Willis, who could come under the head of beaux, but there 
were many distinguished persons. There was Byron's 
sister, Mrs. Leigh, a thin, plain, middle-aged woman, of 
a serious countenance, but with very cordial, pleasing 
manners. Shell, the famous Irish orator, small, dark, 
deceitful, and talented-looking, with a squeaky voice, was 
to be seen in earnest conversation with the courtly old 

179 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

Lord Clarendon. Fonblanque, with his pale, dislocated- 
looking face, was making the amiable, with a ghastly 
smile, to Lady Stepney, author of The Road to Ruin and 
other fashionable novels. The bilious Lord Durham, 
with his Brutus head and severe countenance, high-bred 
in appearance in spite of the worst possible coat and 
trousers, was talking politics with Bowring. Prince 
Moscowa, son of Marshal Ney, a plain, determined- 
looking young man, was unconscious of everything but the 
presence of the lovely Mrs. Leicester Stanhope. Her 
husband, afterwards Sir Leicester, who had been Byron's 
companion in Greece, was introduced to Willis, and the 
two soon became on intimate terms. 

In the course of the season Willis made the acquaint- 
ance of Miss Mitford, who invited him to spend a week 
with her at her cottage near Reading. In a letter to her 
friend. Miss Jephson, Miss Mitford says : ' I also like very 
much Mr. Willis, an American author, who is now under- 
stood to be here to publish his account of England. He 
is a very elegant young man, more like one of the best 
of our peers'' sons than a rough republican."' The admira- 
tion was apparently mutual, for Willis, in a letter to the 
author of Our Village, says : ' You are distinguished in the 
world as the " gentlewoman " among authoresses, as you 
are for your rank merely in literature. I have often 
thought you very enviable for the universality of that 
opinion about you. You share it with Sir Philip Sidney, 
who was in his day the gentleman among authors. I look 
with great interest for your new tragedy. I think your 
mind is essentially dramatic ; and in that, in our time, 
you are alone. I know no one else who could have 
written Rienzi, and I felt Charles I. to my fingers' ends, 
as one feels no other modern play.' 
180 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

Willis was less happy in his relations with Harriet 
Martineau, to whom he was introduced just before 
her departure for America. ' While I was preparing 
for my travels,' she writes, in her own account of the 
interview, ' an acquaintance brought a buxom gentle- 
man, whom he introduced under the name of Willis. 
There was something rather engaging in the round 
face, brisk air, and enjouemcnt of the young man ; 
but his conscious dandyism and unparalleled self-com- 
placency spoiled the satisfaction, though they increased 
the inclination to laugh. . . . He whipped his bright 
little boot with his bright little cane, while he ran over 
the names of all his distinguished fellow-countrymen, 
and declared that he would send me letters to them all."" 
Miss Martineau further relates that the few letters she 
presented met with a very indifferent reception. Her 
indignation increased when she found that in his private 
correspondence Willis had given the impression that she 
was one of his most intimate friends. In his own 
account of the interview he merely says : ' I was taken 
by the clever translator of Faust to see the celebrated 
Miss Martineau. She has perhaps at this moment the 
most general and enviable reputation in England, and 
is the only one of the literary clique whose name is 
mentioned without some envious qualification."' 

A budget of literary news sent to the Mirror includes 
such items as that ' DTsraeli is driving about in an open 
carriage with Lady S., looking more melancholy than 
usual. The absent baronet, whose place he fills, is about 
to bring an action against him, which will finish his 
career, unless he can coin the damages in his brain. 
Mrs. Hemans is dying of consumption in Ireland. I have 
been passing a Aveek at a country-house, where Miss Jane 

181 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

Porter [author of Scottish Chiefs] and Miss Pardee 
[author of Beauties of the Bosphorns] were staying. Miss 
Porter is one of her own heroines grown old, a still noble 
wreck of beauty. . . . Dined last week with Joanna 
Baillie at Hampstead — the most charming old lady I 
ever saw. To-day I dine with Longman, to meet Tom 
Moore, who is living incog: near this Nestor of publishers, 
and pegging hard at his History of Ireland. . . . Lady 
Blessington's new book makes a great noise. Living as 
she does twelve hours out of the twenty-four in the midst 
of the most brilliant and intellectually exhausting circle 
in London, I only wonder how she found time to write it. 
Yet it was written in six weeks ! Her novels sell for a 
hundred pounds more than any other author^'s, except 
Bulwer's. Bulwer gets =£'1400 ; Lady Blessington, =^^400 ; 
Mrs. Norton, ^^250 ; Lady Charlotte Bury, £200 ; Grattan, 
d^SOO ; and most other authors below this. Captain 
Marryat's gross trash sells immensely about Wapping and 
Portsmouth, and brings him in =£'500 or £600 the book — 
but that can scarce be called literature. DTsraeli cannot 
sell a book at all, I hear. Is not that odd ? I would 
give more for one of his books than for forty of the 
common saleable things about town."" 

One more description of a literary dinner at Lady 
Blessington"'s may be quoted before Willis's account of 
this, his first and most memorable London season, is 
brought to an end. Among the company on this occasion 
were Moore, DTsraeli, and Dr. Beattie, the Kings's phy- 
sician, who was himself a poet. Moore had been rural- 
ising for a year at Slopperton Cottage, and, before his 
arrival, DTsraeli expressed his regret that he should have 
been met on his return to town with a savage article in 
Frascr on his supposed plagiarisms. Lady Blessington 
182 



NATHANIEL PARKER AVILLIS 

declared that he would never see it, since he guarded 
himself against the sight and knowledge of criticism as 
other people guarded against the plague. Some one 
remarked on Moore's passion for rank. ' He was sure to 
have five or six invitations to dine on the same day,' it 
was said, 'and he tormented himself with the idea that 
he had perhaps not accepted the most exclusive. He 
would get off from an engagement with a countess to 
dine with a marchioness, and from a marchioness to 
accept the invitation of a duchess. As he cared little 
for the society of men, and would sing and be delight- 
ful only for the applause of women, it mattered little 
whether one circle was more talented than another.' 

At length Mr. Moore was announced, and the poet, 
' sliding his little feet up to Lady Blessington, made his 
compliments with an ease and gaiety, combined with a 
kind of worshipping deference, that were worthy of a 
prime minister at the Court of Love. . . . His eyes still 
sparkle like a champagne bubble, though the invader has 
drawn his pencillings about the corners ; and there is a 
kind of wintry red that seems enamelled on his cheek, the 
eloquent record of the claret his wit has brightened. 
His mouth is the most characteristic feature of all. The 
lips are delicately cut, and as changeable as an aspen ; 
but there is a set-up look about the lower lip — a deter- 
mination of the muscle to a particular expression, and 
you fancy that you can see wit astride upon it. It is 
arch, confident, and half diffident, as if he were disguising 
his pleasure at applause, while another bright gleam of 
fancy was breaking upon him. The slightly tossed nose 
confirms the fun of his expression, and altogether it is a 
face that sparkles, beams, and radiates.' 

The conversation at dinner that night was the most 

183 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

brilliant that the American had yet heard in London. 
Sir Walter Scott was the first subject of discussion, Lady 
Blessington having just received from Sir William Gell 
the manuscript of a volume on the last days of Sir Walter 
Scott, a melancholy chronicle of ruined health and weak- 
ened intellect, which was afterwards suppressed. Moore 
then described a visit he had paid to Abbotsford, when 
his host was in his prime. ' Scott,' he said, ' was the 
most manly and natural character in the world. His 
hospitality was free and open as the day ; he lived freely 
himself, and expected his guests to do the same. . . . He 
never ate or drank to excess, but he had no system ; his 
constitution was Herculean, and he denied himself 
nothing. I went once from a dinner-party at Sir Thomas 
Lawrence's to meet Scott at another house. We had 
hardly entered the room when we were set down to a hot 
supper of roast chicken, salmon, punch, etc., and Sir 
Walter ate immensely of everything. What a contrast 
between this and the last time I saw him in London ! He 
had come to embark for Italy, quite broken down both 
in mind and body. He gave Mrs. Moore a book, and I 
asked him if he would make it more valuable by writing 
in it. He thought I meant that he should write some 
verses, and said, "I never write poetry now." I asked 
him to write only his name and hers, and he attempted 
it, but it was quite illegible.'' 

O'Connell next became the topic of conversation, and 
Moore declared that he would be irresistible if it were 
not for two blots on his character, viz. the contributions 
in Ireland for his support, and his refusal to give satis- 
faction to the man he was willing to attack. ' They may 
say what they will of duelling,' he continued, ' but it is 
the great preserver of the decencies of society. The old 
184 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

school which made a man responsible for his words was 
the better.' Moore related how O'Connell had accepted 
Peel's challenge, and then delayed a meeting on the 
ground of his wife's illness, till the law interfered. 
Another Irish patriot refused a meeting on account of 
the illness of his daughter, whereupon a Dublin wit com- 
posed the following epigram upon the two : — 

' Some men with a horror of slaughter. 
Improve on the Scripture command. 
And honour their — wife and their daughter — 
That their days may be long in the land.' 

Alluding to Grattan's dying advice to his son, ' Always 
be ready with the pistol,' Moore asked, ' Is it not wonder- 
ful that, with all the agitation in Ireland, we have had 
no such men since his time .? The whole country in con- 
vulsion — people's lives, fortune, religion at stake, and 
not a gleam of talent from one's year's end to another. 
It is natural for sparks to be struck out in a time of 
violence like this — but Ireland, for all that is worth 
living for, is dead ! You can scarcely reckon Sheil of the 
calibre of the spirits of old, and O'Connell, with all his 
faults, stands alone in his glory.' 

In the drawing-room, after dinner, some allusion to the 
later Platonists caused D'Israeli to flare up. His wild 
black eyes glistened, and his nervous lips poured out 
eloquence, while a whole ottomanful of noble exquisites 
listened in amazement. He gave an account of Thomas 
Taylor, one of the last of the Platonists, who had wor- 
shipped Jupiter in a back-parlour in London a few years 
before. In his old age he was turned out of his lodgings, 
for attempting, as he said, to worship his gods according 
to the dictates of his conscience, his landlady having 

185 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

objected to his sacrificing a bull to Jupiter in her parlour. 
The company laughed at this story as a good inven- 
tion, but Dizzy assured them it was literally true, and 
gave his father as his authority. Meanwhile Moore 
' went glittering on ' with criticisms upon Grisi and the 
Opera, and the subject of music being thus introduced, 
he was led, with great difficulty, to the piano. Willis 
describes his singing as ' a kind of admirable recitative, 
in which every shade of thought is syllabled and dwelt 
upon, and the sentiment of the song goes through your 
blood, warming you to the very eyelids, and starting your 
tears if you have a soul or sense in you. I have heard of 
women fainting at a song of Moore's ; and if the burden 
of it answered by chance to a secret in the bosom of the 
listener, I should think that the heart would break witii 
it. After two or three songs of Lady Blessington''s 
choice, he rambled over the keys a while, and then sang 
'When first I met thee' with a pathos that beggars 
description. When the last word had faltered out, he 
rose and took Lady Blessington's hand, said Good-night, 
and was gone before a word was uttered. For a full 
minute after he closed the door no one spoke. I could 
have wished for myself to drop silently asleep where I 
sat, with the tears in my eyes and the softness upon my 
heart.' 



PART II 

Having received invitations to stay with Lord Dalhousie 
and the Duke of Gordon, Willis went north at the begin- 
186 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

ning of September, 1834. The nominal attraction of 
Scotland he found, rather to his dismay, was the shooting. 
The guest, he observes, on arriving at a country-house, is 
asked whether he prefers a flint or a percussion lock, and 
a double-barrelled Manton is put into his hands ; while 
after breakfast the ladies leave the table, wishing him 
good sport. ' I would rather have gone to the library,' 
says the Penciller. ' An aversion to walking, except 
upon smooth flag-stones, a poetical tenderness on the 
subject of putting birds " out of their misery," and hands 
much more at home with the goose-quill than the gun, 
were some of my private objections to the order of the 
day."* At Dalhousie, the son of the house. Lord Ramsay, 
and his American visitor were mutually astonished at 
each other''s appearance when they met in the park, 
prepared for a morning's sport. 

' From the elegant Oxonian I had seen at breakfast,"* 
writes Willis, ' he (Lord Ramsay) was transformed into 
a figure something rougher than his Highland dependant, 
in a woollen shooting-jacket, pockets of any number and 
capacity, trousers of the coarsest plaid, hobnailed shoes 
and leather gaiters, and a habit of handling his gun that 
would have been respected on the Mississippi. My own 
appearance in high-heeled French boots and other corre- 
sponding gear, for a tramp over stubble and marsh, 
amused him equally ; but my wardrobe was exclusively 
metropolitan, and there was no alternative."' It was hard 
and exciting work, the novice discovered, to trudge 
through peas, beans, turnips, and corn, soaked with 
showers, and muddied to the knees till his Parisian 
boots were reduced to the consistency of brown paper. 
He came home, much to his own relief, without having 
brought the blood of his hosfs son and heir on his 

187 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

head, and he made a mental note never to go to Scot- 
land again without hobnailed boots and a shooting- 
jacket. 

On leaving Dalhousie Willis spent a few days in Edin- 
burgh, where he breakfasted with Professor Wilson, alias 
Christopher North, The Professor, he says, talked away 
famously, quite oblivious of the fact that the tea was 
made, and the breakfast-dishes were smoking on the table. 
He spoke much of Blackwood, who then lay dying, and 
described him as a man of the most refined literary taste, 
whose opinion of a book he would trust before that of 
any one he knew. Wilson inquired if his guest had 
made the acquaintance of Lockhart. ' I have not,' re- 
plied Willis. ' He is almost the only literary man in 
London I have not met ; and I must say, as the editor 
of the Quarterly Review, and the most unfair and un- 
principled critic of the day, I have no wish to know 
him. I never heard him well spoken of. I have pro- 
bably met a hundred of his acquaintances, but I have 
not yet seen one who pretended to be his friend.' Wilson 
defended the absent one, who, he said, was the mildest 
and most unassuming of men, and dissected a book 
for pleasure, without thinking of the feelings of the 
author. 

The breakfast had been cooling for an hour when the 
Professor leant back, with his chair still towards the fire, 
and ' seizing the teapot as if it were a sledge-hammer, he 
poured from one cup to the other without interrupting 
the stream, overrunning both cup and saucer, and partly 
flooding the tea-tray. He then set the cream towards 
me with a carelessness that nearly overset it, and in try- 
ing to reach an egg from the centre of the table, broke 
two. He took no notice of his own awkwardness, but 
188 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

drank his cup of tea at a single draught, ate his egg in 
the same expeditious manner, and went on talking of the 
" Noctes," and Lockhart, and Blackwood, as if eating his 
breakfast were rather a troublesome parenthesis in his 
conversation.'' Wilson offered to give his guest letters 
to Wordsworth and Southey, if he intended to return by 
the Lakes. ' I lived a long time in their neighbourhood,'' 
he said, ' and know Wordsworth perhaps as well as any 
one. Many a day I have walked over the hills with him, 
and listened to his repetition of his oAvn poetry, which, 
of course, filled my mind completely at the time, and 
perhaps started the poetical vein in me, though I cannot 
agree with the critics that my poetry is an imitation of 
Wordsworth's.' 

' Did Wordsworth repeat any other poetry than his 
own ? "' 

' Never in a single instance, to my knowledge. He is 
remarkable for the manner in which he is wrapped up 
in his own poetical life. Everything ministers to it. 
Everything is done with reference to it. He is all and 
only a poet." 

' What is Southey 's manner of life ? ' 

' Walter Scott said of him that he lived too much 
with women. He is secluded in the country, and sur- 
rounded by a circle of admiring friends, who glorify 
every literary project he undertakes, and persuade him, 
in spite of his natural modesty, that he can do nothing 
wrong. He has great genius, and is a most estimable 
man.'' 

On the same day that he breakfasted with Wilson, 
this fortunate tourist dined with Jeffrey, with whom 
Lord Brougham was staying. Unluckily, Brougham was 
absent, at a public dinner given to Lord Grey, who also 

189 



NATHANIEL PARKER AVILLIS 

happened to be in Edinburgh at the time. Willis was 
charmed with Jeffrey, with his frank smile, hearty 
manner, and graceful style of putting a guest at his 
ease. But he cared less for the political conversation at 
table. ' It had been my lot,"" he says, ' to be thrown 
principally among Tories {Conservatives is the new name) 
since my arrival in England, and it was difficult to rid 
myself at once of the impressions of a fortnight passed in 
the castle of a Tory earl. My sympathies on the great 
and glorious occasion [the Whig dinner to Lord Grey] 
were slower than those of the rest of the company, and 
much of their enthusiasm seemed to me overstrained. 
Altogether, I entered less into the spirit of the hour 
than I could have wished. Politics are seldom witty 
or amusing ; and though I was charmed with the 
good sense and occasional eloquence of Lord Jeffrey, 
I was glad to get upstairs to chasse-cafe and the 
ladies." 

Willis aggravated a temporary lameness by dancing 
at the ball that followed the Whig banquet, and was 
compelled to abandon a charming land-route north that 
he had mapped out, and allow himself to be taken ' this 
side up "■ on a steamer to Aberdeen. Here he took coach 
for Fochabers, and thence posted to Gordon Castle. 
At the castle he found himself in the midst of a most 
distinguished company ; the page who showed him to 
his room running over the names of Lord Aberdeen and 
Lord Claude Hamilton, the Duchess of Richmond and 
her daughter, Lady Sophia Lennox, Lord and Lady 
Stormont, Lord and Lady Mandeville, Lord and Lady 
Morton, Lord Aboyne, Lady Keith, and twenty other 
lesser lights. The duke himself came to fetch his 
guest before dinner, and presented him to the duchess 
190 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

and the rest of the party. In a letter to Lady Blessington 
Willis says : ' I am delighted with the duke and duchess. 
He is a delightful, hearty old fellow, full of fun and 
conversation, and she is an uncommonly fine woman, 
and, without beauty, has something agreeable in her 
countenance. Pour moi-meme^ I get on better every- 
where than in your presence. I only fear I talk too 
much ; but all the world is particularly civil to me, and 
among a score of people, no one of whom I had ever seen 
yesterday, I find myself quite at home to-day.** 

The ten days at Gordon Castle Willis afterwards set 
apart in his memory as 'a bright ellipse in the usual 
procession of joys and sorrows.' He certainly made the 
most of this unique opportunity of observing the manners 
and customs of the great. The routine of life at the 
castle was what each guest chose to make it. ' Between 
breakfast and lunch,' he writes, ' the ladies were usually 
invisible, and the gentlemen rode, or shot, or played 
billiards. At two o'clock a dish or two of hot game and 
a profusion of cold meats were set on small tables, and 
everybody came in for a kind of lounging half meal, 
which occupied perhaps an hour. Thence all adjourned 
to the drawing-room, under the windows of which were 
drawn up carriages of all descriptions, with grooms, 
outriders, footmen, and saddle-horses for gentlemen and 
ladies. Parties were then made up for driving or riding, 
and from a pony-chaise to a phaeton and four, there 
was no class of vehicle that was not at your disposal. 
In ten minutes the carriages were all filled, and away 
they flew, some to the banks of the Spey or the seaside, 
some to the drives in the park, and all with the delight- 
ful consciousness that speed where you would, the horizon 
scarce limited the possessions of your host, and you were 

191 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

everywhere at home. The ornamental gates flying open 
at your approach ; the herds of red deer trooping awav 
from the sound of your wheels; the stately pheasants 
feeding tamely in the immense preserves ; the stalking 
gamekeepers lifting their hats in the dark recesses of the 
forest — there was something in this perpetual reminder 
of your privileges which, as a novelty, was far from dis- 
agreeable. I could not, at the time, bring myself to feel, 
what perhaps would be more poetical and republican, 
that a ride in the wild and unfenced forest of my own 
country would have been more to my taste.' 

Willis came to the conclusion that a North American 
Indian, in his more digniiiod phase, closely resembled an 
English nobleman in manner, since it was impossible to 
astonish either. All violent sensations, he observes, are 
avoided in hiiih lite. ' In conversation nothing: is so 
" odd " (a word that in English means everything dis- 
agreeable) as emphasis, or a startling epithet, or gesture, 
and in common intercourse nothing is so vulgar as any 
approach to " a scene." For all extraordinary admira- 
tion, the word " capital " suffices ; for all ordinary praise, 
the word "nice''; for all condemnation in morals, 
manners, or religion, the word " odd." . . . AVliat is 
called an overpowering person is immediately shunned, 
for he talks too much, and excites too much attention. 
In anv other country he would be considered amusing. 
He is regarded here as a monopoliser of the general in- 
terest, and his laurels, talk he never so well, overshadow 
the rest of the company.' 

On leaving Gordon Castle, Willis crossed Scotland by 

the Caledonian Canal, and from Fort William jolted in 

a Highland cart through Glencoe to Tarbet on Lomond. 

Thence the regulation visits were paid to Loch Katrine, 

192 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

the Trossachs and Callander. Another stay at Dalhousie 
Castle gave the tourist an opportunity of seeing Abbots- 
ford, where he heard much talk of Sir Walter Scott. 
Lord Dalhousie had many anecdotes to tell of Scotfs 
school-days, and Willis recalled some reminiscences of 
the Wizard that he had heard from Moore in London. 
' Scott was the soul of honesty,' Moore had said. ' When 
I was on a visit to him, we were coming up from Kelso 
at sunset, and as there was to be a fine moon, I quoted 
to him his own rule for seeing " fair Melrose aright," and 
proposed to stay an hour and enjoy it. "Bah," said 
Scott. " I never saw it by moonlight." We went, 
however, and Scott, who seemed to be on the most 
familiar terms with the cicerone, pointed to an empty 
niche, and said to him : " I think I have a Virgin and 
Child that will just do for your niche. I'll send it to 
you." "How happy you have made that man," I said. 
" Oh," said Scott, " it was always in the way, and Madam 
Scott is constantly grudging it house-room. We're well 
rid of it." Any other man would have allowed himself 
at least the credit of a kind action.' 

After a stay at a Lancashire country-house, Willis 
arrived at Liverpool, where he got his first sight of the 
newly-opened railway to Manchester. In the letters and 
journals of the period, it is rather unusual to come upon 
any allusion to the great revolution in land-travelling. 
We often read of our grandfathers' astonishment at the 
steam-packets that crossed the Atlantic in a fortnight, 
but they seem to have slid into the habit of travelling 
by rail almost as a matter of course, much as their 
descendants have taken to touring in motor-cars. Willis 
the observant, however, has left on record his sensations 
during his first journey by rail. 

N ' 193 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

' Down we dived into the long tunnel,' he relates, 
' emerging from the darkness at a pace that made my hair 
sensibly tighten, and hold on with apprehension. Thirty 
miles in the hour is pleasant going when one is a little 
accustomed to it, it gives one such a pleasant contempt 
for time and distance. The whizzing past of the 
return trains, going in the opposite direction with the 
same degree of velocity — making you recoil in one second, 
and a mile off the next — was the only thing which, 
after a few minutes, I did not take to very kindly.' 

Willis adds to our obligations by reporting the cries 
of the newsboys at the Elephant and Castle, where all 
the coaches to and from the South stopped for twenty 
minutes. On the occasion that our traveller passed 
through, the boys were crying ' Noospipper, sir ! Buy 
the morning pippers, sir ! Times, Herald, Chr'mnicle, and 
Munning Post, sir — contains Lud Brum's entire 
innihalation of Lud Nummanby — Ledy Flor 'Estings' 
murder by Lud Melbun and the Maids of Honour — 
debate on the Croolty-Hannimals Bill, and a fatil cats- 
trophy in conskens of loosfer matches ! Sixpence, only 
sixpence ! ' 

In November Willis returned to London, and took 
lodgings in Vigo Street. During the next ten months he 
seems to have done a good deal of work for the magazines, 
and to have been made much of in society as a literary 
celebrity. His stories and articles, which appeared in 
the New Monthly Magazine under the pseudonym of 
Philip Slingsby, were eagerly read by the public of that 
day. He was presented at court, admitted to the 
Athenaeum and Travellers' Clubs, and patronised by 
Lady Charlotte Bury and Lady Stepney, ladies who were 
in the habit of writing bad novels, and giving excellent 
194 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

dinners. Madden, Lady Blessington"'s biographer, who 
saw a good deal of Willis at this time, says that he 
was an extremely agreeable young man, somewhat over- 
dressed, and a little too demonstratif, but abounding 
in good spirits. ' He was observant and communica- 
tive, lively and clever in conversation, having the 
peculiar art of making himself agreeable to ladies, old 
and young, degage in his manner, and on exceedingly 
good terms with himself.' 

Not only had Willis the entree into fashionable 
Bohemia, but he was Avell received in many families of 
unquestionable respectability. Elderly and middle- 
aged ladies were especially attracted by his flattering 
attentions and deferential manners, and at this time 
two of his most devoted friends were Mrs. Shaw of the 
Manor House, Lee, a daughter of Lord Erskine, and 
Mrs. Skinner of Shirley Park, the wife of an Indian 
nabob. Their houses were always open to him, and he 
says in a letter to his mother : ' I have two homes in 
England where I am loved like a child. I had a letter 
from Mrs. Shaw, who thought I looked low-spirited at 
the opera the other night. " Young men have but two 
causes of unhappiness," she writes, " love and money. 
If it is money^ Mr. Shaw wishes me to say you shall 
have as much as you want ; if it is love^ tell us the lady, 
and perhaps we can help you." I spend my Sundays 
alternately at their splendid country-house, and at 
Mrs. Skinner's, and they can never get enough of me. 
I am often asked if I carry a love-philter with 
me."* 

At Shirley Park, Willis struck up a friendship with 
Jane Porter, and made the acquaintance of Lady 
Morgan, Praed, John Leech, and Martin Tupper. Mrs. 

195 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

Skinner professed to be extremely anxfous to find him 
a suitable wife, and in a confidential letter to her, he 
writes : ' You say if you had a daughter you would give 
her to me. If you had one, I should certainly take you 
at your word, provided this expose of my poverty did 
not change your fancy. I should like to marry in 
England, and I feel every day that my best years and 
best affections are running to waste. I am proud to he 
an American, but as a literary man, I would rather live 
in England. So if you know of any affectionate and 
good girl who would be content to live a quiet life, and 
could love your humble servant, you have full power to 
dispose of me, provided she has five hundred a year, or 
as much more as she likes. I know enough of the 
world to cut my throat, rather than bring a delicate 
woman down to a dependence on my brains for support.' 
In March of this year, 1835, Willis produced his 
Melanie, and other Poems, which was ' edited '' by Barry 
Cornwall. He received the honour of a parody in the 
Bon Gaultier Ballads, entitled ' The Fight with the 
Snapping Turtle, or the American St. George."' In this 
ballad Willis and Bryant are represented as setting out 
to kill the Snapping Turtle, spurred on by the offer of a 
hundred dollars reward. The turtle swallows Willis, 
but is thereupon taken ill, and having returned him to 
earth again, dies in great agony. When he claims the 
reward, he is informed that 

' Since you dragged the tarnal crittur 
From the bottom of the ponds. 
Here's the hundred dollars due you 
All in Pennsylvanian bonds.' 

At the end of the poem is a drawing of a pair of stocks, 
labelled ' The only good American securities.'' 
196 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

Willis seems to have been too busy to Bosvvellise this 
season, but we get a glimpse of him in his letters to 
Miss Mitford, and one or two of the notes in his diary 
are worth quoting. On April 22 he writes to the author 
of Om- Village in his usual flattering style : ' I am anxious 
to see your play and your next book, and I quite agree 
with you that the drama is your j9?V<^Z, though I think 
laurels, and spreading ones, are sown for you in every 
department of writing. Nobody ever wrote better 
prose, and what could not the author of Rienzi do in 
verse. For myself, I am far from considering myself 
regularly embarked in literature, and if I can live with- 
out it, or ply any other vocation, shall vote it a thank- 
less trade, and save my " entusymussy " for my wife and 
children — when I get them. I am at present steeped 
to the lips in London society, going to everything, from 
Devonshire House to a publisher"'s dinner in Paternoster 
Row, and it is not a bad olla podrida of life and 
manners. I dote on " England and true English,'" and 
was never so happy, or so at a loss to find a minute for 
care or forethought.' 

In his diary for June 30, Willis notes : ' Breakfasted 
with Samuel Rogers. Talked of Mrs. Butler's book, 
and Rogers gave us suppressed passages. Talked critics, 
and said that as long as you cast a shadow, you were 
sure that you possessed substance. Coleridge said of 
Southey, " I never think of him but as mending a pen." 
Southey said of Coleridge, " Whenever anything presents 
itself to him in the form of a duty, that moment he 
finds himself incapable of looking at it."" ' On July 9 
we have the entry : ' Dined with Dr. Beattie, and met 
Thomas Campbell. . . . He spoke of Scott's slavishness 
to men of rank, but said it did not interfere with his 

197 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

senius. Said it sunk a man's heart to think that he 
and Byron were dead, and there was nobody left to 
praise or approve. . . . He told a story of dining with 
Burns and a Bozzy friend, who, when Campbell proposed 
the health of Mr. Burns, said, " Sir, you will always be 
known as Mr. Campbell, but posterity will talk of 
Burns.'''' He was playful and amusing, and drank gin 
and water/ 

While staying with the Skinners in August, Willis 
met his fate in the person of Miss Mary Stace, 
daughter of a General Stace. After a week's acquaint- 
ance he proposed to her, and was accepted. She was, 
we are told, a beauty of the purest Saxon type, with a 
bright complexion, blue eyes, light - brown hair, and 
delicate, regular features. Her disposition was clinging 
and affectionate, and she had enjoyed the religious 
bringing up that her lover thought of supreme im- 
portance to a woman. General Stace agreed to allow 
his daughter ^£^300 a year, which with the i?400 that 
Willis made by his pen, was considered a sufficient 
income for the young couple to start housekeeping 
upon. 

Willis, who had promised to pay Miss Mitford a 
visit in the autumn, writes to her on September 22, 
to explain that all his plans were altered. ' Just before 
startins: with Miss Jane Porter on a tour that was to 
include Reading,' he says, ' I went to a picnic, fell in 
love with a blue-eyed girl, and (after running the 
gauntlet successfully through France, Italy, Greece, 
Germany, Asia Minor, and Turkey) I renewed my 
youth, and became " a suitor for love." I am to 
be married {sequitur) on Thursday week. . . . The 
lady who is to take me, as the Irish say, " in a present," 
198 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

is some six years younger than myself, gentle, religious, 
relying, and unambitious. She has never been whirled 
through the gay society of London, so is not giddy or 
vain. She has never swum in a gondola, or written a 
sonnet, so has a proper respect for those who have. 
She is called pretty, but is more than that in my eyes ; 
sings as if her heart were hid in her lips, and loves me. 
. . . We are bound to Paris for a month (because I 
think amusement better than reflection when a woman 
makes a doubtful bargain), and by November we return 
to London for the winter, and in the spring sail for 
America to see my mother. I have promised to live 
mainly on this side of the water, and shall return in 
the course of a year to try what contentment may be 
sown and reaped in a green lane in Kent."" 

While the happy pair were on their honeymoon. 
Lady Blessington had undertaken to see the Pencillings 
hy the Way through the press. For the first edition 
Willis received £^50^ but he made, from first to last, 
about a thousand pounds by the book. Its appear- 
ance in volume form had been anticipated by Lockharfs 
scathing review in the Quarterly for September 1835. 
The critic, annoyed at Willis's strictures on himself in 
the interview with Professor Wilson, attacked the 
Pencillings, as they had appeared in the New Yorh 
Mirror, with all proper names printed in full, and 
many personal details that were left out in the English 
edition. Lockhart always knew how to stab a man 
in the tenderest place, and he stabbed Willis in his 
gentility. After pointing out that while visiting in 
London and the provinces as a young American 
sonneteer of the most ultra-sentimental delicacy, the 
Penciller was all the time the regular paid correspon- 

199 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

dent of a New York Journal, he observes that the 
letters derive their powers of entertainment chiefly 
from the light that they reflect upon the manners and 
customs of the author^s own countrymen, since, from 
his sketches of English interiors, the reader may learn 
what American breakfast, dinners, and table-talk are 
not ; or at all events what they were not in those 
circles of American society with which the writer 
happened to be familiar. 

'Many of this person'' s discoveries,"' continues Lockhart, 
warming to his work, ' will be received with ridicule in 
his own country, where the doors of the best houses 
were probably not opened to him as liberally as those 
of the English nobility. In short, we are apt to 
consider him as a just representative — not of the 
American mind and manners generally — but only of 
the young men of fair education among the busy, 
middling orders of mercantile cities. In his letters 
from Gordon Castle there are bits of solid, full-grown 
impudence and impertinence ; while over not a few of 
the paragraphs is a varnish of conceited vulgarity which 
is too ludicrous to be seriously offensive. . . . We can 
well believe that Mr. Willis depicted the sort of society 
that most interests his countrymen, " born to be slaves 
and struggling to be lords," their servile adulation of 
rank and talent ; their stupid admiration of processions 
and levees, are leading features of all the American 
books of travel. . . . We much doubt if all the pretty 
things we have quoted will so far propitiate Lady 
Blessington as to make her again admit to her table 
the animal who has printed what ensues. [Here 
follows the report of Moore's conversation on the sub- 
ject of 0"'Connell.] As far as we are acquainted with 
200 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

English or American literature, this is the first example 
of a man creeping into your home, and forthwith, 
before your claret is dry on his lips, printing table-talk 
on delicate siibjects, and capable of compromising indi- 
viduals.'' 

The Quarterly having thus given the lead, the rest 
of the Tory magazines gaily followed suit. Maginn 
flourished his shillelagh, and belaboured his victim 
with a brutality that has hardly ever been equalled, 
even by the pioneer journals of the Wild West. *This 
is a goose of a book,' he begins, ' or if anybody wishes 
the idiom changed, the book of a goose. There is not 
an idea in it beyond what might germinate in the 
brain of a washerwoman.' He then proceeds to call 
the author by such elegant names as ' lickspittle,' 
' beggarly skittler,' jackass, ninny, haberdasher, 
' fifty-fifth rate scribbler of gripe-visited sonnets,' and 
' namby-pamby writer in twaddling albums kept by 
the mustachioed widows or bony matrons of Portland 
Place.' 

The people whose hospitality Willis was accused of 
violating wrote to assure him of the pleasure his book 
had given them. Lord Dalhousie writes : ' We all 
agree in one sentiment, that a more amusing and 
delightful production was never issued by the press. 
The Duke and Duchess of Gordon were here lately, 
and expressed themselves in similar terms.' Lady 
Blessington did not withdraw her friendship, but Willis 
admits, in one of his letters, that he had no deeper 
regret than that his indiscretion should have checked 
the freedom of his approach to her. As a result of 
the slashing reviews, the book sold with the readiness 
of a succes de scandale, though it had been so rigorously 

201 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

edited for the English market, that very few indiscre- 
tions were left. 

The unexpurgated version of the PenciUings was, 
however, copied into the English papers and eagerly 
read by the persons most concerned, such as Fonblanque, 
who bitterly complained of the libel upon his personal 
appearance, O'Connell, who broke off his lifelong 
friendship with Moore, and Captain Marryat, who 
was furious at the remark that his ' gross trash ' sold 
immensely in Wapping. Like Lockhart, he revenged 
himself by an article in his own magazine, the Metro- 
politan, in which he denounced Willis as a 'spurious 
attache,"* and made dark insinuations against his birth 
and parentage. This attack was too personal to be 
ignored. Willis demanded an apology, to which 
Marryat replied with a challenge, and after a long 
correspondence, most of which found its way into the 
Times, a duel was fixed to take place at Chatham. 
At the last moment the seconds managed to arrange 
matters between their principals, and the affair ended 
without bloodshed. This was fortunate for Willis, 
who was little used to fire-arms, whilst Marryat was a 
crack shot. 

In his preface to the first edition of the PenciUings 
Willis explains that the ephemeral nature and usual 
obscurity of periodical correspondence gave a sufficient 
warrant to his mind that his descriptions would die 
where they first saw the light, and that therefore he had 
indulged himself in a freedom of detail and topic only 
customary in posthumous memoirs. He expresses his 
astonishment that this particular sin should have been 
visited upon him at a distance of three thousand miles, 
when the Quarterly reviewer''s own fame rested on the more 
202 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

aggrav^ated instance of a book of personalities published 
under the very noses of the persons described {^Peter\s 
Letters to his Kinsfolk). After observing that he was 
little disposed to find fault, since everything in England 
pleased him, he proceeds : ' In one single instance I 
indulged myself in strictures upon individual character. 
... I but repeated what I had said a thousand times, 
and never without an indignant echo to its truth, that 
the editor of that Review was the most unprincipled 
critic of the age. Aside from its flagrant literary 
injustice, we owe to the Quartey-ly every spark of ill- 
feeling that has been kept alive between England and 
America for the last twenty years. The sneers, the 
opprobrious epithets of this bravo of literature have 
been received in a country where the machinery of 
reviewing was not understood, as the voice of the 
English people, and animosity for which there was no 
other reason has been thus periodically fed and 
exasperated. I conceive it to be my duty as a literary 
man — I Tinoxv it is my duty as an American — to lose 
no opportunity of setting my heel on this reptile of 
criticism. He has turned and stung me. Thank God, 
I have escaped the slime of his approbation."* 

The winter was spent in London, and in the following 
March Willis brought out his InMings of Adventure^ a 
reprint of the stories that had appeared in various 
magazines over the signatiu-e of Philip Slingsby. These 
were supposed to be real adventures under a thin 
disguise of fiction, and the public eagerly read the 
tawdry little tales in the hope of discovering the 
identities of the dramatis personae. The majority of 
the ' Inklings ' deal with the romantic adventures of a 
young literary man who wins the aflPection of high-born 

203 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

ladies, and is made much of in aristrocratic circles. 
The author revels in descriptions of luxurious boudoirs 
in which recline voluptuous blondes or exquisite 
brunettes, with hearts always at the disposal of the 
all-conquering Philip Slingsby. Fashionable fiction, 
however, was unable to support the expense of a 
fashionable establishment, and in May 1836 the 
couple sailed for America. Willis hoped to obtain a 
diplomatic appointment, and return to Europe for 
good, but all his efforts were vain, and he was obliged 
to rely on his pen for a livelihood. His first undertak- 
ing was the letterpress for an illustrated volume on 
American scenery ; and for some months he travelled 
about the country with the artist who was respon- 
sible for the illustrations. On one of his journeys 
he fell in love with a pretty spot on the banks 
of the Owego Creek, near the junction with the 
Susquehanna, and bought a couple of hundred acres 
and a house, which he named Glenmary after his 
wife. 

Here the pair settled down happily for some five 
years, and here Willis wrote his pleasant, gossiping 
Letters froyn Under a Bridge for the Nexo York Mirror. 
In these he prattled of his garden, his farm, his horses 
and dogs, and the strangers within his gates. Un- 
fortunately, he was unable to devote much attention to 
his farm, which was said to grow nothing but flowers of 
speed, but was forced to spend more and more time in 
the editorial office, and to write hastily and incessantly 
for a livelihood. In 1839, owing to a temporary 
coolness with the proprietor of the Mirror, Willis 
accepted the proposal of his friend. Dr. Porter, that he 
should start a new weekly paper called the Corsair, one 
204 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

of a whole crop of pirate weeklies that started up with 
the establishment of the first service of Atlantic liners. 
In May 1839 the first steam-vessel that had crossed 
the ocean anchored in New York Harbour, and thence- 
forward it was possible to obtain supplies from the 
European literary markets within a fortnight of pub- 
lication. It was arranged between Dr. Parker and 
Willis that the cream of the contemporary literature of 
England, France, and Germany should be conveyed to 
the readers of the Corsair, and of course there Avas no 
question of payment to the authors whose wares were 
thus appropriated. 

The first number of the Corsair appeared in January 
1839, but apparently piracy was not always a lucrative 
trade, for the paper had an existence of little more 
than a year. In the course of its brief career, how- 
ever, Willis paid a flying visit to England, where he 
accomplished a great deal of literary business. He had 
written a play called The Usurer Matched, which was 
brought out by Wallack at the Surrey Theatre, and is 
said to have been played to crowded houses during a 
fairly long run, but neither this nor any of his other 
plays brought the author fame or fortune. During this 
season he published his Loiterings of Travel, a collec- 
tion of stories and sketches, a fourth edition of the Pen- 
cillings, an English edition of Letters from Under a 
Bridge, and arranged with Virtue for Avorks on Irish 
and Canadian scenery. In addition to all this, he was 
contributing jottings in London to the Corsair. As 
might be supposed, he had not much time for society, 
but he met a few old friends, made acquaintance 
with Kemble and Kean, went to a ball at Almack's, and 
was present at the famous Eglinton Tournament, 

205 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

which watery catastrophe he described for his paper. 
One of the most interesting of his new acquaint- 
ances was Thackeray, then chiefly renowned as a writer 
for the magazines. On July 26 Willis writes to 
Dr. Porter : — 

' I have engaged a new contributor to the Corsair. 
Who do you think ? The author of Yelloxvplush and 
Major Gahagan. He has gone to Paris, and will write 
letters from there, and afterwards from London for a 
guinea a close column of the Corsair — cheaper than I 
ever did anything in my life. For myself, I think him 
the very best periodical writer alive. He is a royal, 
daring, fine creature too.*" In his published Jottings, 
Willis told his readers that ' Mr. Thackeray, the author, 
breakfasted with me yesterday, and the Corsair will be 
delighted to hear that I have engaged this cleverest and 
most gifted of all the magazine-writers of London to 
become a irgiilar correspondent of the Corsair. . . . 
Thackeray is a tall, athletic-looking man of about forty- 
five [he was actually only eight-and-twenty], with a look 
of talent that could never be mistaken. He is one of 
the most accomplished draughtsmen in England, as well 
as the most brilliant of periodical writers.' Thackeray 
only wrote eight letters for the Corsair, which were 
afterwards republished in his Paris Sketch-bool: There 
is an allusion to this episode in The Adventwes qf Philip, 
the hero being invited to contribute to a New York 
journal called The Upper Ten T7iousand, a phrase in- 
vented by Willis. 

When the Corsair came to an untimely end, Willis 

had no difficulty in finding employment on other 

papers. He is said to have been the first American 

magazine- writer who was tolerably well paid, and at one 

206 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

time he was making about a thousand a year by periodi- 
cal work. That his name was already celebrated among 
his own countrymen seems to be proved by the story of 
a commercial gentleman at a Boston tea-party who 
' guessed that Go-ethe was the N. P. Willis of Germany." 
The tales written about this time were afterwards 
collected into a volume called Dashes at Life with a 
Free Pencil. Thackeray made great fun of this work 
in the Edinburgh Reviexo for October 1845, more 
especially of that portion called ' The Heart-book of 
Ernest Clay.' 'Like Caesar,' observed Thackeray, 'Ernest 
Clay is always writing of his own victories. Duchesses 
pine for him, modest virgins go into consumption and 
die for him, old grandmothers of sixty forget their 
families and their propriety, and fall on the neck of 
this " Free Pencil."''' ' He quotes with delight the 
description of a certain Lady Mildred, one of Ernest 
Clay's numerous loves, who glides into the room at a 
London tea-party, ' with a step as elastic as the 
nod of a water-lily. A snowy turban, from which 
hung on either temple a cluster of crimson camellias 
still wet with the night-dew ; long raven curls of 
undisturbed grace falling on shoulders of that inde- 
scribable and dewy coolness which follows a morning 
bath.' How naively, comments the critic, does this 
nobleman of nature recommend the use of this rare 
cosmetic ! 

In spite of his popularity, Willis's affairs were not 
prospering at this time. He had received nothing 
from the estate of his father-in-law, who died in 1839, 
his publisher failed in 1842, and he was obliged to 
sell Glenmary and remove to New York, whence he 
had undertaken to send a fortnightly letter to a paper 

207 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

at Washington. This was the year of Dickens's visit to 
America, and Willis was present at the ' Boz Ball,"" 
where he danced with Mrs. Dickens, to whom he after- 
wards did the honours of Broadway. In 1843 Willis 
made up his difference with Morris, and again became 
joint-editor of the Mirror, which, a year later, was 
changed from a weekly to a daily paper. His con- 
tributions to the journal consisted of stories, poems, 
letters, book-notices, answers to correspondents, and 
editorial gossip of all kinds. 

In March 1845 Mrs. Willis died in her confinement, 
leaving her (temporarily) broken-hearted husband with 
one little girl. ' An angel without fault or foible "* was 
his epitaph upon the woman to whom, in spite of his 
many fictitious bonnes fortunes, he is said to have been 
faithfully attached. But Willis was not born to live 
alone, and in the following summer he fell in love with 
a Miss Cornelia Grinnell at Washington, and was 
married to her in October, 1846. The second Mrs. 
Willis was nearly twenty years younger than her husband, 
but she was a sensible, energetic young woman, who 
made him an excellent wife. 

The title of the Mirror had been changed to that of 
The Home Journal, and under its new name it became a 
prosperous paper. Willis, who was the leading spirit of 
the enterprise, set himself to portray the town, chronic- 
ling plays, dances, picture-exhibitions, sights and enter- 
tainments of all kinds in the airy manner that was so 
keenly appreciated by his countrymen. He was recog- 
nised as an authority on fashion, and his correspondence 
columns were croAvded with appeals for guidance in 
questions of dress and etiquette. He was also a 
favourite in general society, though he is said to have 
208 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

been, next to Fenimore Cooper, the best-abused man of 
letters in America. One of his most pleasing character- 
istics was his ready appreciation and encouragement of 
young writers, for he was totally free from professional 
jealousy. He was the literary sponsor of Aldrich, Bayard 
Taylor, and Lowell, among others, and the last-named 
alludes to Willis in his Fable for Crithcs (1848) in the 
following; flattering; lines : — 

' His nature 's a glass of champagne with the foam on 't, 
As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beaumont ; 
So his best things are done in the heat of tlie moment. 

He 'd have been just the fellow to sup at the ' Mermaid,' 
Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye to the barmaid. 
His wit running up as Canary ran down, — 
The topmost bright bubble on the wave of the town.' 

After 1846 Willis wrote little except gossiping 
paragraphs and other ephemera. In answer to re- 
monstrances against this method of frittering away his 
talents, he was accustomed to reply that the public liked 
trifles, and that he was bound to go on ' buttering 
curiosity with the ooze of his brains.' He read but 
little in later life, nor associated with men of high 
intellect or serious aims, but showed an ever-increasing 
preference for the frivolous and the feminine. In 1850 
he published another volume of little magazine stories 
called People I have Met. This appeared in London as 
well as in New York, and Thackeray again revenged 
himself for that close column which had been rewarded 
by an uncertain guinea, by holding up his former editor 
to ridicule. With mischievous delight he describes 
the amusement that is to be found in N. P. Willis"'s 
o 209 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

society, ' amusement at the immensity of N. P.'s 
blunders ; amusement at the prodigiousness of his 
self-esteem ; amusement always with or at Willis the 
poet, Willis the man, Willis the dandy, Willis the 
lover — now the Broadway Crichton — once the ruler of 
fashion and heart-enslaver of Bond Street, and the 
Boulevard, and the Corso, and the Chiaja, and the 
Constantinople Bazaars. It is well for the general peace 
of families that the world does not produce many such 
men ; there would be no keeping our wives and daughters 
in their senses were such fascinators to make frequent 
apparitions among us ; but it is comfortable that there 
should have been a Willis ; and as a literary man myself, 
and anxious for the honour of that profession, I am 
proud to think that a man of our calling should have 
come, should have seen, should have conquered as Willis 
has done. . . . There is more or less of truth, he nobly 
says, in these stories — more or less truth, to be sure 
there is — and it is on account of this more or less truth 
that I for my part love and applaud this hero and poet. 
We live in our own country, and don't know it ; Willis 
walks into it, and dominates it at once. To know a 
duchess, for instance, is given to very few of us. He 
sees things that are not given to us to see. We see the 
duchess in her carriage, and gaze with much reverence 
on the strawberry-leaves on the panels, and her grace 
within ; whereas the odds are that that lovely duchess 
has had, one time or the other, a desperate flirtation 
with Willis the Conqueror. Perhaps she is thinking of 
him at this very moment, as her jewelled hand presses 
her perfumed handkerchief to her fair and coroneted 
brow, and she languidly stops to purchase a ruby 
bracelet at Gunter"'s, or to sip an ice at Howell and 
210 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

James's. He must have whole mattresses stuffed with 
the blonde or raven or auburn tresses of England's 
fairest daughters. When the female English aristocracy 
read the title of People I have Met, I can fancy the 
whole female peerage of Willis's time in a shudder ; 
and the melancholy marchioness, and the abandoned 
countess, and the heart-stricken baroness trembling as 
each gets the volume, and asks of her guilty conscience, 
" Gracious goodness, is the monster going to show up 
me ? " ' 

In 1853 Willis, who had been obliged to travel 
for the benefit of his declining health, took a fancy 
to the neighbourhood of the Hudson, and bought fifty 
acres of waste land, upon which he built himself a 
house, and called the place Idlewild. Here he settled 
down once more to a quiet country life, took care 
of his health, cultivated his garden, and wrote long 
weekly letters to the Home Journal. He had by this 
time five children, middle age had stolen upon him, and 
now that he could no longer pose as his own all- 
conquering hero, his hand seems to have lost its cunning. 
His editorial articles, afterwards published under the 
appropriate title of Ephemera, grew thinner and flatter 
with the passing of the years ; yet slight and superficial 
as the best of them are, they were the result of very 
hard writing. His manuscripts were a mass of erasures 
and interlineations, but his copy was so neatly prepared 
that even the erasures had a sort of ' wavy elegance ' 
which the compositors actually preferred to print. His 
mannerisms and affectations grew upon him in his later 
years, and he became more and more addicted to the 
coining of new words and phrases, only a few of which 
proved effective. Besides the now well-worn term, 

21] 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

the ' upper ten thousand,^ he is credited with the inven- 
tion of ' Japonicadom,'' ' come-at-able,'' and ' stay-at- 
home-ativeness.' One or two of his sayings may be 
worth quoting, such as his request for Washington 
Irving's blotting-book, because it was the door-mat on 
which the thoughts of his last book had wiped their 
sandals before they went in ; and his remark that to 
ask a literary man to write a letter after his day's 
work was like asking a penny-postman to take a walk in 
the evening for the pleasure of it. 

On the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Willis 
went to Washington as war-correspondent of his paper. 
It does not appear that he saw any harder service than 
the dinners and receptions of the capitol, since an 
opportune fit of illness prevented his following the 
army to BulPs Run. The correspondent who took his 
place on the march had his career cut short by a 
Southern bullet. Willis, meanwhile, was driving about 
with Mrs. Lincoln, with whom he became a favourite, 
although she reproached him for his want of tact in 
speaking of her ' motherly expression ' in one of his 
published letters, she being at that time only thirty-six. 
He met Hawthorne at Washington, and describes him 
as very shy and reserved in manner, but adds, ' I found 
he was a lover of mine, and we enjoyed our acquaintance 
very much.' One of the minor results of the great 
Civil War was the extinguishing of Willis's literary 
reputation ; his frothy trifling suddenly became obsolete 
when men had sterner things to think about than the 
cut of a coat, or the etiquette of a morning call. The 
nation began to demand realities, even in its fiction, the 
cii'culation of the Home Journal fell off, and Willis, who 
had always affected a horror of figures and business 
212 



NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS 

matters generally, found himself in financial difficulties. 
He was obliged to let Idlewild, and return, in spite of 
his rapidly failing health, to the editorial office at New 
York. 

The last few years of Willis's career afford a melan- 
choly contrast to its brilliant opening. Health, success, 
prosperity — all had deserted him, and nothing remained 
but the editorial chair, to which he clung even after 
epileptic attacks had resulted in paralysis and gradual 
softening of the brain. The failure of his mental 
powers was kept secret as long as possible, but in 
November, 1866, he yielded to the entreaties of his 
wife and children, knocked off work for ever, and went 
home to die. His last few months were passed in 
helpless weakness, and he only occasionally recognised 
those around him. The end came on January 20, 
1867, his sixty-first birthday. 

Selections from Willis's prose works have been pub- 
lished within recent years in America, and a new edition 
of his poems has appeared in England, while a carefully 
written Life by Mr. De Beers is included in the series 
of ' American Men of Letters.' But in this country at 
least his fame, such as it is, will rest upon his sketches 
of such celebrities as Lamb, Moore, Bulwer, D'Orsay, 
and DTsraeli. As long as we retain any interest in 
them and their works, we shall like to know how they 
looked and dressed, and what they talked about in 
private life. It is impossible altogether to approve of 
the Penciller — his absurdities were too marked, and his 
indiscretions too many — yet it is probable that few who 
have followed his meteor-like career will be able to 
refrain from echoing Thackeray's dictum : 'It is com- 
fortable that there should have been a Willis ! ' 

213 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 




^a-{^i:7Ce^i^^e^ C^^ca/nA^:>A'e^. 






LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

PART I 

There are few true stories that are distinguished by a well- 
marked moral. If we study human chronicles we generally 
find the ungodly flourishing permanently like a green bay- 
tree, and the righteous apparently forsaken and begging 
his bread. But it occasionally happens that a human 
life illustrates some moral lesson with the triteness and 
crudity of a Sunday-school book, and of such is the 
career of Lady Hester Stanhope, a Pitt on the mother's 
side, and more of a Pitt in temper and disposition than 
her grandfather, the great Commoner himself. Her 
story contains the useful but conventional lesson that 
pride goeth before a fall, and that all earthly glory is 
but vanity, together with a warning against the ambition 
that ©''erleaps itself, and ends in failure and humiliation. 
That humanity will profit by such a lesson, whether true 
or invented for didactic purposes, is doubtful, but at 
least Nature has done her best for once to usurp the 
seat of the preacher, ' to point a moral and adorn a tale."" 
Lady Hester, who was born on March 12,1776, was the 
eldest daughter of Charles, third Earl of Stanhope, by his 
first wife Hester, daughter of the great Lord Chatham. 
Lord Stanhope seems to have been an uncomfortable 
person, who combined scientific research with demo- 
cratic principles, and contrived to quarrel with most of 

217 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

his family. In order to live up to his theories he laid 
down his carriage and horses, effaced the armorial 
bearings from his plate, and removed from his walls 

some famous tapestry, because it was ' so d d 

aristocratical.' If one of his daughters happened 
to look better than usual in a becoming hat or 
frock, he had the garment laid away, and something 
coarse put in its place. The children were left almost 
entirely to the care of governesses and tutors, their step- 
mother, the second Lady Stanhope (a Grenville by birth) 
being a fashionable fine lady, who devoted her whole 
time to her social duties, while Lord Stanhope was 
absorbed by his scientific pursuits. The home was not 
a happy one, either for the three girls of the first mar- 
riage, or for the three sons of the second. In 1796 
Rachel, the youngest daughter, eloped with a Sevenoaks 
apothecary named Taylor, and was cast off by her family ; 
and in 1800 Griselda, the second daughter, married a 
Mr. Tekell, of Hampshire. In this year Hester left her 
home, which George iii. used to call Democracy Hall, 
and went to live with her grandmother, the Dowager 
Lady Stanhope. 

On the death of Lady Stanhope in 1803, Lady 
Hester was offered a home by her uncle, William Pitt, 
with whom she remained until his death in 1806. Pitt 
became deeply attached to his handsome, high-spirited 
niece. He believed in her sincerity and affection for 
himself, admired her courage and cleverness, laughed at 
her temper, and encouraged her pride. She seems to 
have gained a considerable influence over her uncle, and 
contrived to have a finger in most of the ministerial 
pies. When reproached for allowing her such unreserved 
liberty of action in state affairs, Pitt was accustomed to 
218 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

reply, ' I let her do as she pleases ; for if she were 
resolved to cheat the devil himself, she would do it.' 
* And so I would,"* Lady Hester used to add, when she 
told the story. If we may believe her own account, 
Pitt told her that she was fit to sit between Augustus 
and Maecenas, and assured her that ' I have plenty of 
good diplomatists, but they are none of them military 
men ; and I have plenty of good officers, but not one of 
them is worth sixpence in the cabinet. If you were a 
man, Hester, I would send you on the Continent with 
60,000 men, and give you carte blanche^ and I am sure 
that not one of my plans would fail, and not one soldier 
Avould go with his boots unblacked.' This admiration, 
according to the same authority, was shared by George iii., 
who one day on the Terrace at Windsor informed 
Mr. Pitt that he had got a new and superior minister 
in his room, and one, moreover, who was a good general. 
' There is my new minister,' he added, pointing at Lady 
Hester. ' There is not a man in my kingdom who is a 
better politician, and there is not a woman who better 
adorns her sex. And let me say, Mr. Pitt, you have 
not reason to be proud you are a minister, for there 
have been many before you, and will be many after you ; 
but you have reason to be proud of her, who unites 
everything that is great in man and woman.' 

All this must, of course, be taken with grains of salt, 
but it is certain that Lady Hester occupied a position 
of almost unparalleled supremacy for a woman, that she 
dispensed patronage, lectured ministers, and snubbed 
princes. On one occasion Lord Mulgrave, who had just 
been appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 
found a broken egg-spoon on the breakfast-table at 
Walmer, and asked, ' How can Mr. Pitt have such a 

219 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

spoon as this ? ' ' Don't you know,"" retorted Lady 
Hester, ' that Mr. Pitt sometimes uses very slight and 
weak instruments wherewith to effect his ends ? ' 
Again, when Mr, Addington wished to take the title of 
Lord Raleigh, Lady Hester determined to prevent what 
she regarded as a desecration of a great name. She 
professed to have seen a caricature, which she minutely 
described, representing Mr. Addington as Sir Walter 
Raleigh, and the King as Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Pitt, 
believing the story, repeated it to Addington and others, 
with the result that messengers were despatched to all 
the print-shops to buy up the whole impression. Of 
course no such caricature was to be found, but the pro- 
spective peer had received a fright, and chose the inoffen- 
sive title of Lord Sidmouth. Lady Hester despised 
Lord Liverpool for a well-meaning blunderer, but she 
hated and distrusted Canning, whom she was accustomed 
to describe as a fiery, red-headed Irish politician, who 
was never staunch to any person or any party ; and she 
declared that by her scoldings she had often made him 
blubber like a schoolboy. It cannot be supposed that 
her ladyship was popular with the numerous persons, 
high and low, who came under the ban of her displeasure, 
or suffered from her pride ; but she was young, hand- 
some, and witty, her position was unassailable, and as 
long as her uncle chose to laugh at her insolence and 
her eccentricities, no lesser power presumed to frown. 

For her beauty in youth we must again take her own 
account on trust, since she never consented to sit for 
her portrait, and in old age her recollection of her vanished 
charms may have been coloured by some pardonable 
exaggeration. ' At twenty,' she told a chronicler, ' my 
complexion was like alabaster, and at five paces distant 
220 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

the sharpest eyes could not discover my pearl necklace 
from my skin. My lips were of such a beautiful carna- 
tion that, without vanity, I can assure you, very few 
women had the like. A dark-blue shade under the eyes, 
and the blue veins that were observable through the 
transparent skin, heightened the brilliancy of my 
features. Nor were the roses wanting in my cheeks ; 
and to all this was added a permanency in my looks 
that no sort of fatigue could impair.' She was fond of 
relating an anecdote of a flattering impertinence on the 
part of Beau Brummell, who, meeting her at a ball, 
coolly took the earrings out of her ears, telling her that 
she should not wear such things, as they hid the fine 
turn of her cheek, and the set of head upon her neck. 
Lady Hester frankly admitted, however, that it was her 
brilliant colouring that made her beauty, and once 
observed, in reply to a compliment on her appearance : 
' If you were to take every feature in my face, and lay 
them one by one on the table, there is not a single one 
that would bear examination. The only thing is that, 
put together and lighted up, they look well enough. 
It is homogeneous ugliness, and nothing more.' 

With Pitt's death in January, 1806, as by the stroke 
of a magic wand, all the power, all the glory, and all the 
grandeur came to a sudden end, and the great minister's 
favourite niece fell to the level of a private lady, with a 
moderate income, no influence, and a host of enemies. 
On his deathbed, Pitt had asked that an annuity of 
£1500 might be granted to Lady Hester, but in the 
end only £1200 was awarded to her, a trifling income 
for one with such exalted ideas of her own importance. 
A house was taken in Montagu Square, where Lady 
Hester entertained her half-brothers, Charles and James 

221 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

Stanhope, when their military duties allowed of their 
being in town. Here she led but a melancholy life, for 
her means would not allow of her keeping a carriage, and 
she fancied that it was incompatible with her dignity to 
drive in a hackney-coach, or to walk out attended by a 
servant. In 1809 Charles Stanhope, like his chief, Sir 
John Moore, fell at Corunna. Charles was Lady 
Hester"'s favourite brother, and tradition says that Sir 
John Moore was her lover. Be that as it may, she 
broke up her establishment in town at this time, and 
retired to a lonely cottage in Wales, where she amused 
herself in superintending her dairy and physicking the 
poor. But she suffered in health and spirits, the con- 
trast of the present with the past was too bitter to be 
endured in solitude, and in 1810 she decided to go 
abroad, and spend a year or two in the south. A young 
medical man. Dr. Meryon,^ was engaged to accompany 
her as her travelling physician, and the party further 
consisted of her brother, James Stanhope, and a friend, 
Mr. Nassau Sutton, together with two or three servants. 
Lady Hester was only thirty when her uncle died, but it 
does not seem to have been considered that she required 
any chaperonage, either at home or on her travels, nor 
does it appear that Lord Stanhope (who lived till 1816) 
took any further interest in her proceedings. 

On February 10, 1810, the travellers sailed for the 
Mediterranean on board the frigate Jason. It is not 
necessary to follow them over the now familiar ground of 
the early part of their tour. Gibraltar (whence Captain 
Stanhope left to join his regiment at Cadiz), Malta, 
Athens, Constantinople, these were the first stopping- 
places, and in each Lady Hester was treated with great 
^ Afterwards Lady Hester's chronicler. 

222 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

respect by the authorities, and went her own way in 
defiance of all native customs and prejudices. At 
Athens her party was joined by Lord Sligo, who was 
making some excavations in the neighbourhood, and by 
Lord Byron, who had just won fresh laurels by swim- 
ming the Hellespont. Lady Hester formed but a poor 
opinion of the poet, whose affectations she used to mimic 
with considerable effect. ' I think Lord Byron was a 
strange character,"* she said, many years later. ' His 
generosity was for a motive, his avarice was for a 
motive ; one time he was mopish, and nobody was to 
speak to him ; another, he was for being jocular with 
everybody. ... At Athens I saw nothing in him but 
a well-bred man, like many others : for as for poetry, it 
is easy enough to write verses ; and as for the thoughts, 
who knows where he got them ? Many a one picks up 
some old book that nobody knows anything about, and 
gets his ideas out of it. He had a great deal of vice in 
his looks — his eyes set close together, and a contracted 
brow. O Lord ! I am sure he was not a liberal man, 
whatever else he might be. The only good thing about his 
looks was this part [drawing her hand under her cheek, and 
down the front of her neck], and the curl on his forehead."* 
The winter of 1810 was passed at Constantinople, 
and the early part of 1811 at the Baths of Brusa. As 
Lady Hester had decided to spend the following winter 
in Egypt, a Greek vessel was hired for herself and 
her party, which now consisted of two gentlemen, 
Mr. Bruce and Mr. Pearce, besides her usual retinue, 
and on October 23 the travellers set sail for Alexandria. 
After experiencing contrary winds for two or three 
weeks, the ship sprang a leak, and the cry of *A11 
hands to the pumps ' showed that danger was imminent. 

223 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

Lady Hester took the announcement of the misfortune 
with the greatest calmness, dressed herself, and ordered 
her maid to pack a small box with a few necessaries. 
It soon became evident that the ship could not keep 
afloat much longer, and that the passengers and crew 
must take to the long-boat if they wished to escape 
with their lives. They contrived, in spite of the high 
sea that was running, to steer their boat into a little 
creek on a rock off the island of Rhodes, and here, with- 
out either food or water, they remained for thirty hours 
before they were rescued, and taken ashore. Even 
then their state was hardly less pitiable, for they were 
wet through, had no change of clothes, and possessed 
hardly enough money for their immediate necessities. 
Lady Hester described her adventure in the following 
letter, dated Rhodes, December, 1811 : — 

' I write one line by a ship which came in here for a 
few hours, just to tell you we are safe and well. Starv- 
ing thirty hours on a bare rock, without even fresh 
water, being half naked and drenched with wet, having 
traversed an almost trackless country over dreadful 
rocks and mountains, laid me up at a village for a few 
days, but I have since crossed the island on an ass, 
going for six hours a day, which proves I am pretty 
well, now, at least. . . . My locket, and the valuable 
snuff-box Lord Sligo gave me, and two pelisses, are all 
I have saved — all the travelling-equipage for Smyrna is 
gone ; the servants naked and unarmed ; but the great 
loss of all is the medicine-chest, which saved the lives 
of so many travellers in Greece.' 

As they had lost nearly all their clothes, and knew 
that it would be impossible to procure a European 
refit in these regions, the travellei's decided to adopt 
224 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

Turkish costumes. Dr. Meryon made a journey to 
Smyrna, where he raised money, and bought necessary 
articles for the shipwrecked party at Rhodes. On his 
return, laden with purchases, after an absence of five 
weeks, ' the packing-cases were opened [to quote his 
own description], and we assumed our new dresses. 
Ignorant at that time of the distinctions of dress which 
prevail in Turkey, every one flattered himself that he 
was habited becomingly. Lady Hester and Mr. Bruce 
little suspected, what proved to be the case, that their 
exterior was that of small gentry, and Mr. Pearce and 
myself thought we were far from looking like Chaooshes 
with our yatagans stuck in our girdles.' Lady Hester, 
it may be noted, had determined to adopt the dress of 
a Turkish gentleman, in order that she might travel 
unveiled, a proceeding that would have been impossible 
in female costume. 

The offer of a passage on a British frigate from 
Rhodes to Alexandria Avas gladly accepted by Lady 
Hester and her friends, and on February 14, 1812, 
they got their first glimpse of the Egyptian coast. 
After a fortnight spent in Alexandria, they proceeded 
to Cairo, where the pasha, who had never seen an 
Englishwoman of rank before, desired the honour of a 
visit from Lady Hester. In order to dazzle the eyes 
of her host, she arrayed herself in a magnificent Tunisian 
costume of purple velvet, elaborately embroidered in 
gold. For her turban and girdle she bought two cash- 
mere shawls that cost £50 each, her pantaloons cost 
£40, her pelisse and waistcoat £50, her sabre .£'20, and 
her saddle ^35, while other articles necessary for the 
completion of the costume cost a hundred pounds more. 
The pasha sent five horses to convey herself and her 
p 225 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

friends to the palace, and much honour was shown her 
in the number of silver sticks that walked before her, 
and in the privilege accorded to her of dismounting at 
the inner gate. After the interview, the pasha reviewed 
his troops before his distinguished visitor, and presented 
her with a charger, magnificently caparisoned, which she 
sent to England as a present to the Duke of York, her 
favourite among all the royal princes. 

The next move was to Jaffa, where preparations were 
made for the regulation pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In 
her youth Lady Hester had been told by Samuel Brothers, 
the Prophet, that she was to visit Jerusalem, to pass 
seven years in the desert, to become the Queen of 
the Jews, and to lead forth a chosen people. Now, 
as she journeyed towards the Holy City with her 
cavalcade of eleven camels and thirteen horses, she saw 
the first part of the prophecy fulfilled, and laughingly 
avowed that she expected to see its final accomplish- 
ment. Lady Hester had now replaced her gorgeous 
Tunisian dress by a travelling Mameluke's costume, con- 
sisting of a satin vest, a red cloth jacket shaped like a 
spencer, and trimmed with gold lace, and loose, full 
trousers of the same cloth. Over this she wore a flow- 
ing white burnous, whose folds formed a becoming 
drapery to her majestic figure. In this costume she 
was generally mistaken by the natives for a young Bey 
with his moustaches not yet grown, but we are told that 
her assumption of male dress was severely criticised by 
the English residents in the Levant. 

From Jerusalem the party made a leisurely tourthrough 
Syria, visiting Caesarea, Acre, Nazareth, Sayda, where 
Lady Hester was entertained by her future enemy, the 
Emir Beshyr, prince of the Druzes, and on September 

OQfi 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

1, 1812, arrived at Damascus, where a lengthened 
stay was made. Lady Hester had been warned that it 
would be dangerous for a woman, unveiled and in man's 
dress, to enter Damascus, which was then one of the 
most fanatical towns in all the Turkish dominions. But 
the granddaughter of Pitt feared neither Turk nor 
Christian, and rode through the streets daily with un- 
covered face, and though crowds assembled to see 
her start, she received honours instead of the expected 
insults. ' A grave yet pleasing look,' writes her chron- 
icler, ' an unembarrassed yet commanding demeanour, 
met the ideas of the Turks, whose manners are of this 
caste. . . . When it is considered how fanatical the 
people of Damascus were, and in what great abhorrence 
they held infidels ; that native Christians could only 
inhabit a particular quarter of the town ; and that no 
one of these could ride on horseback within the walls, 
or wear as part of his dress any coloured cloth or showy 
turban, it will be a matter for surprise how completely 
these prejudices were set aside in favour of Lady Hester, 
and of those persons who were with her. She rode out 
every day, and according to the custom of the country, 
coffee was poured on the ground before her horse to do 
her honour. It was said that, in going through a 
bazaar, all the people rose up as she passed, an honour 
never paid but to a pasha, or to the mufti.' 

From the moment of her arrival at Damascus, Lady 
Hester had busied herself in arranging for a journey to 
the ruins of Palmyra. The expedition was considered 
not only difficult but dangerous, and she was assured 
that a large body of troops would be necessary to pro- 
tect her from the robber tribes of the desert. While the 
practicability of the enterprise was still being anxiously 

227 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

discussed by her Turkish advisers, Lady Hester received 
a visit from a certain Nasar, son of ^lahannah. Emir of 
the Ani/ys ^ (the collective name given to several of the 
Bedouin tribes ranging that part of the desert), who 
told her that he had heard of her proposed expedition, 
and that he came to warn her against attempting to 
cross the desert under military escort, since in that 
case slie would be treated as an enemy by the tribes. 
But, he added, if she would place herself under the pro- 
tection of the Arabs, and rely upon their honour, they 
would pledge themselves to conduct her from Hamah to 
Palmyra and back again in safety. The result of this 
interview was that Lady Hester declined the pasha's 
ofFer of troops, and leaving the doctor to wind up 
affairs at Damascus she departed alone, ostensibly 
for Hamah. a city on the highroad to Aleppo. But 
having secretly arranged a meeting with the Emir 
Mahannah in the desert, she rode straight to his camp, 
accompanied by ^Monsieur and INIadame Lascaris, who 
were living in the neighbourhood, and by a Bedouin 
guide. In a letter to General Oakes, dated January i25, 
1813, she gives the following account of her first experi- 
ment upon the good faith of the Arabs : — 

* I went with the great chief, Mahannah el Fade! 
(who commands 40,000 men), into the desert for a week, 
and marched for three days with their camp. I was 
treated with the greatest respect and hospitality, and 
it was the most curious sight I ever saw ; horses and 
mares fed upon camel's milk ; Arabs living upon little 
else except rice ; the space around me covered with living 
things; 1600 camels coming to water from one tribe 

' Dr. Meryon's somewhat erratic spelling of Oriental names is fol- 
lowed throughout this memoir. 



LADY HESTER STANttOPE 

only ; the old poets from the banks of the Euphrates 
singing the praises of the ancient heroes ; women with 
lips dyed bright blue, and nails red, and hands all over 
flowers and different designs ; a chief who is obeyed 
like a great king ; starvation and pride so mixed that 
really I could not have had an idea of it. . . . However, 
I have every reason to be perfectly contented with their 
conduct towards me, and I am the Qiieen with them 
all/ 

The preparations for the journey occupied nearly two 
months, the cavalcade being on a magnificent scale. 
Twenty-two camels were to carry the baggage, twenty- 
five horsemen formed the retinue, in addition to the 
Bedouin escort, led by Nasar, the Emir's son. Still the 
risk was great, for Lady Hester carried w^ith her many 
articles of value, and of course was wholly at the mercy 
of her conductors, who got their living by plunder. But 
she sought the remains of Zenobia as well as the ruins of 
Palmyra, and had set her heart upon seeing the city which 
had been governed by one of her own sex, and owed its 
chief magnificence to her genius. Mr. Bruce, writing to 
General Oakes just before the start, observes : ' If Lady 
Hester succeeds in this undertaking, she will at least 
have the merit of being the first European female who 
has ever visited this once celebrated city. Who knows 
but she may prove another Zenobia, and be destined to 
restore it to its ancient splendour ? '' 

The cavalcade set out on March 20, a sum of about 
£50 being paid over to the Emir for his escort, with the 
promise of twice as much more on the safe return of 
the party. The journey seems to have been uneventful 
save for the occasional sulks of the Bedouin leader, and 
the petty thefts of his followers. The inhabitants of 

229 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

Palmyra had been warned of the approach of the ' great 
white queen/ who rode a mare worth forty purses, and 
had in her possession a book which instructed her where 
to find treasure, and a bag of herbs with which she 
could transmute stones into gold. By way of welcome a 
body of about two hundred men, armed with matchlocks, 
went out to meet her, and displayed for her amusement 
a mock attack on, and defence of, a caravan. The guides 
led the cavalcade up through the long colonnade, which 
is terminated by a triumphal arch, the shaft of each 
of the pillars having a projecting pedestal, or console, on 
which a statue once stood. ' What was our surprise,"" 
writes Dr. Meryon, ' to see, as we rode up the avenue, 
that several beautiful girls had been placed on these 
pedestals in the most graceful postures, and with garlands 
in their hands. . . . On each side of the arch other girls 
stood by threes, while a row of six was arranged across 
the gate of the arch with thyrsi in their hands. While 
Lady Hester advanced, these living statues remained 
immovable on their pedestals ; but when she had passed, 
they leaped to the ground, and joined in a dance by 
her side. On reaching the triumphal arch, the whole 
in groups, both men and girls, danced round her. Here 
some bearded elders chanted verses in her praise, and all 
the spectators joined in the chorus. Lady Hester herself 
seemed to partake of the emotions to which her presence 
in this remote spot had given rise. Nor was the 
wonder of the Palmyrenes less than our own. They 
beheld with amazement a woman who had ventured 
thousands of miles from her own country, and crossed 
a waste where hunger and thirst were the least of the 
perils to be dreaded.' It may be observed that the 
people of Syria, excited by the achievements of Sir Sydney 
230 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

Smith, had begun to imagine that their land might be 
occupied by the English, and perhaps regarded Lady 
Hester as an English princess who had come to prepare 
the way, if not to take possession. 

The travellers were only allowed a week in which to 
examine the ruins of Palmyra, being hurried away by 
Prince Nasar on the plea that an attack was expected 
from a hostile tribe. After resting for a time at Hamah, 
and taking an affectionate farewell of their friendly 
Bedouins (Lady Hester was enrolled as an Anizy Arab 
of the tribe of Melken), they journeyed to Laodicea, 
which was believed to be free from the plague that was 
raging in other parts of Syria, and here the summer 
months were spent. In October Mr. Bruce received 
letters which obliged him to return at once to England, 
and, as Dr. Meryon observes, ' he therefore reluctantly 
prepared to quit a lady in whose society he had so long 
travelled, and from whose conversation and experience of 
the world so much useful knowledge was to be acquired." 
Lady Hester had now renounced the idea of returning 
to Europe, at any rate for the present. She had some 
thoughts of taking a journey overland to Bussora, and 
had also entered into a correspondence with the chief of 
the Wahabys, with a view to travelling across the 
desert to visit him in his capital of Derayeh ; but she 
finally decided on remaining for some months longer in 
Syria. She had heard of a house, once a monastery, at 
Mar Elias, near Sayda (the ancient Sidon), which could 
be hired for a small rent. The house was taken, the 
luggage shipped to Sayda, and Lady Hester and her 
doctor were preparing to follow, when both fell ill of a 
malignant fever, which they believed to be a species of 
plague. For some time Lady Hester"'s life was despaired 

231 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

of, but thanks to her splendid constitution, she pulled 
through, though she was not strong enough to leave 
Laodicea until January, 1814. 

Lady Hester had now become a sojourner instead of a 
traveller in the East, and, abandoning European customs 
altogether, she conformed entirely to the mode of life of 
the Orientals. Mar Elias, which was situated on a spur 
of Mount Lebanon, in a barren and rocky region, consisted 
of a one-storied stone building with flat roofs, enclos- 
ing a small paved court. ' Since her illness,'' writes Dr. 
Meryon, 'Lady Hester's character seemed to have changed. 
She became simple in her habits, almost to cynicism. 
Scanning men and things with a wonderful intelligence, 
she commented upon them as if the motives of human 
action were laid open to her inspection.' The plague 
having again broken out in the neighbourhood, the 
party at Mar Elias were insulated upon their rock, and 
during the early days of their tenancy were in much 
the same position as the crew of a well- victualled ship at 
sea, having abundance of fresh provisions, but no books, 
no newspapers, and no intercourse with the outer world. 

In the autumn an expedition to the ruins of Baalbec 
was undertaken, and at Beyrout, on the way home, a 
servant brought the news that a Zaym, or Capugi Bashi,^ 
was at that town on his road to Sayda, and was reported 
to be going to capture Lady Hester, and carry her to 
Constantinople. Her ladyship received the announce- 
ment with her usual composure, and it turned out that 
she had long expected the Capugi Bashi, and knew the 
object of his visit. Scarcely had the travellers arrived 
at Mar Elias than a message came to Lady Hester, 

^ Nominally a door-keeper, according to Dr. Meryon, but actually a 
Turkish official of high rank. 

232 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

requesting her to meet the Zaym at the house of 
the governor of Sayda, since it was not customary 
for a Turkish official to go to a Christian's liouse. 
But in this case the haughty Moslem had reckoned 
without his host. Lady Hester returned so spirited 
an answer that the Zaym at once ordered his horses, 
and galloped over to Mar Elias. The doctor and the 
secretary, knowing nothing of the mission, felt consider- 
able doubt of his intentions, and put loaded pistols 
in their girdles, determined that if he had a bowstring 
under his robes, no use should be made of it while they 
had a bullet at his disposal. In the Turkish dominions, 
it must be understood, a Capugi Bashi seldom comes 
into the provinces unless for some affair of strangling, 
beheading, confiscation, or imprisonment, and his pre- 
sence is the more dreaded, as it is never known on whose 
head the blow will fall. 

In this case, fortunately, the Capugi's visit had no 
sinister motive. The fact was now divulged that Lady 
Hester had been given a manuscript, said to have been 
copied by a monk from the records of a Frank 
monastery in Syria, which disclosed the hiding-places 
of immense hoards of money buried in certain specified 
spots in the cities of Ascalon and Sayda. Lady Hester, 
having convinced herself of the genuineness of the manu- 
script, had written to the Sultan through Mr., after- 
wards Sir Robert, Liston, for permission to make the 
necessary excavations, at the same time offering to forego 
all pecuniary benefit that might accrue from her labours. 
The custom of burying money in times of danger is so 
common in the East that credence was easily lent to the 
story, while the fact that treasure might lie for centuries 
untouched, even though the secret of its existence was 

233 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

known to several persons, was possible in a country where 
digging among ruins always excites dangerous suspicions 
in the minds of the authorities, and where the discovery 
of a jar of coins almost invariably leads to the ruin of 
the finder, who is supposed to keep back more than he 
reveals. 

The Sultan evidently believed that the matter was 
worth examination, for he had sent the Capugi from 
Constantinople to invest Lady Hester with greater 
authority over the Turks than had ever been granted 
even to a European ambassador. It was arranged that 
the first excavations should be made at Ascalon, and 
though Lady Hester, having only just returned from 
Baalbec, felt disinclined to set out at once on another 
long journey, the Zaym urged her to lose no time, and 
himself went on to Acre to make the necessary prepara- 
tions. As her income barely sufficed for her own ex- 
penditure, she resolved to ask the English Government 
to pay the cost of her search, holding that the honour 
which would thereby accrue to the English name was a 
sufficient justification for her demand. 

* I shall beg of you," she said to Dr. Meryon, ' to 
keep a regular account of every article, and will then 
send in my bill to Government by Mr. Liston ; when, if 
they refuse to pay me, I shall put it in the newspapers, 
and expose them. And this I shall let them know very 
plainly, as I consider it my right, and not as a 
favour ; for if Sir A. Paget put down the cost of his 
servants'" liveries after his embassy to Vienna, and made 
Mr. Pitt pay him ^£^7 0,0 00 for four years, I cannot see 
why I should not do the same.' 

On February 15, 1815, Lady Hester left Mar Elias 
on horseback, folloAved by her usual retinue, and on 
234 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

arriving at Acre spent about three weeks in preparing 
for the work at Ascalon. In compliance with the 
firmans sent by the Porte to all the governors of Syria, 
she was treated with distinctions usually paid to no one 
under princely rank. * Whenever she went out,' writes 
Dr, Meryon, ' she was followed by a crowd of spectators; 
and the curiosity and admiration which she had very 
generally excited throughout Syria were now increased 
by her supposed influence in the affairs of Government, 
in having a Capugi Bashi at her command. . . . No 
Turk now paid her a visit without wearing his mantle 
of ceremony, and every circumstance showed the ascend- 
ency she had gained in public opinion.' In addition to 
her own six tents, twenty more were furnished for her 
suite, besides twenty-two tent-pitchers, twelve mules to 
carry the baggage, and twelve camels to carry the tents. 
To Lady Hesters use was appropriated a gorgeous 
tilted palanquin or litter, covered with crimson cloth, 
and ornamented with gilded balls. In case she pre- 
ferred riding, her mare and her favourite black ass 
were led in front of the litter. A hundred men of 
the Hawary cavalry escorted the procession, which left 
Acre on March 18, and arrived at Jaffa ten days 
later. Here a short halt was made, and on the last 
day of March they set off for Ascalon, their animals 
laden with shovels, pickaxes, and baskets. On arriving 
at their destination the tents were pitched in the midst 
of the ruins, while a cottage was fitted up for Lady 
Hester without the walls. Orders were at once despatched 
to the neighbouring villages for relays of labourers to 
work at the excavations. These men received no pay, 
being requisitioned by Government, but they were well 
fed and humanely treated by their English employer. 

235 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

The excavations were carried on for about a fort- 
night on the site indicated in the mysterious paper. 
During the first three days nothing was found except 
bones, fragments of pillars, and a few vases and 
bottles ; but on the fourth day a fine, though mutilated, 
colossal statue was discovered, which apparently repre- 
sented a deified king. Dr. Meryon made a sketch 
of the marble, and pointed out to Lady Hester that 
her labours had at least brought to light a treasure 
that would be valuable in the eyes of lovers of art, 
and that the ruins would be memorable for the enter- 
prise of a woman who had rescued the remains of 
antiquity from oblivion. To his astonishment and dis- 
may she replied, ' It is my intention to break up the 
statue, and have it thrown into the sea, precisely in 
order that such a report may not get abroad, and I 
lose with the Porte all the merit of my disinterestedness.'' 
In vain Dr. Meryon represented that such an act would 
be an unpardonable vandalism, and was the less excus- 
able since the Turks had neither claimed the statue, 
nor protested against its preservation. Her only answer 
was : ' Malicious people may say I came to search for 
antiquities for my country, and not for treasures for the 
Porte. So, go this instant, take with you half-a-dozen 
stout fellows, and break it into a thousand pieces."* 
Michaud, in his account of the affair, says that the 
Turks clamoured for the destruction of the statue, 
believing that the trunk was full of gold, and that 
Lady Hester had it broken up in order to prove to 
them their error. Be this as it may, reports were 
afterwards circulated in Ascalon that the statue had 
actually contained treasure, half of which was handed 
over to the Porte, and half kept by Lady Hester. 
236 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

On the sixth day two large stone troughs were dis- 
covered, upon which lay four granite pillars. This 
sight revived the hopes of the searchers, for it was 
thought that the mass of granite could not have fallen 
into such a position accidentally, but must have been 
placed there to conceal something of value. Great 
was the disappointment of all concerned when, on 
removing the pillars, the troughs were found to be 
empty. The excavations of the next four days having 
produced nothing of any value, the work was brought to 
an end, by Lady Hester's desire, on April 14. She had 
come to the conclusion that when Gezzar Pasha em- 
bellished the city of Acre by digging for marble among 
the ruins of Ascalon, he had been fortunate enough to 
discover the treasure, and she believed that his apparent 
mania for building was only a cloak to conceal his real 
motives for excavating. The officials and soldiers were 
handsomely rewarded for their trouble, and Lady Hester 
set out on her homeward journey, minus her tents, 
palanquin, military escort, and other emblems of 
grandeur, but with no loss of dignity or serenity. 

On returning to Mar Elias, she caused some excava- 
tions to be made near Sayda, but with no better success, 
and after a few days the work was abandoned. Lady 
Hester had been obliged to borrow a sum of money for 
her expenses from Mr. Barker, the British consul at 
Aleppo, and now, observes Dr. Meryon, ' as she had 
throughout proposed to herself no advantage but the 
celebrity which success would bring on her own name 
and that of the English nation, and as she had acted 
with the cognisance of our minister at Constantinople, 
she fancied that she had a claim upon the English 
Government for her expenses. Accordingly, she sent 

237 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

our ambassador an account of her proceedings, and after 
showing that all she had done was for the credit of her 
country, she asserted her right to be reimbursed. She 
was unsuccessful, however, in her application, and the 
expenses weighed heavily upon her means. Yet hitherto 
she had never been in debt, and by great care and 
economy she still contrived to keep out of it.' 

Lady Hester having apparently decided to spend the 
remainder of her days in Syria, Dr. Meryon informed 
her that he was anxious to return to his own country, 
but that he would not leave her until a substitute had 
been engaged. Accordingly, Giorgio, the Greek inter- 
preter, was despatched to England to engage the doctor''s 
successor, and to execute a number of commissions for 
his mistress. During the autumn Lady Hester was 
actively employed in stirring up the authorities to avenge 
the death of a French traveller. Colonel Boutin, who 
had been murdered by the Ansarys on the road between 
Hamah and Laodicea. As the pasha of the district 
had made no effort to trace or punish the murderers, 
she had taken the matter into her own hands, holding 
that the common cause of travellers demanded that such 
a crime should not go unpunished. Dr. Meryon vainly 
tried to dissuade her from this course of action, urging 
that the French consuls were bound to sift the affair, 
and that she, in taking so active a part, was exposing 
herself to the vengeance of the mountain tribes. As 
usual, the only effect of remonstrance was to make her 
more determined to persevere in the course she had 
marked out for herself. In the result, she succeeded in 
inducing the pasha to send a punitive expedition into 
the mountains, and herself directed the commandant, by 
information secretly obtained, where the criminals were 
238 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

to be found. Mustafa Aga Berber, governor of the 
district, led the expedition, and carried fire and sword 
into the Ansary country. It was reported that he burnt 
the villages of the assassins, and sent several heads to 
the pasha as tokens of his victories. Lady Hester 
received a vote of thanks from the French Chamber of 
Deputies, after a speech by Comte Delaborde, explaining 
the services she had rendered. 

News of the great events that were taking place in 
France had now reached Sayda, and Lady Hester, whose 
foible it was to think that the successors of Pitt could 
do no right, was highly displeased at the action of the 
British Government. She gave vent to her sentiments 
in the following letter, dated April 1816, to her cousin 
the Marquis (afterwards Duke) of Buckingham : — 

' You cannot doubt that a woman of my character 
and (I presume to say) understanding must have held in 
contempt and aversion all the statesmen of the present 
day, whose unbounded ignorance and duplicity have 
brought ruin on France, have spread their own shame 
through all Europe, and have exposed themselves not 
only to ridicule, but to the curses of present and future 
generations. One great mind, one single, enlightened 
statesman, whose virtues had equalled his talents, was 
all that was wanting to effect, at this unexampled 
period, the welfare of all Europe, by taking advantage 
of events the most extraordinary that have occurred in 
any era. . . . Cease therefore to torment me. I will 
not live in Europe, even were I, in flying from it, com- 
pelled to beg my bread. Once only will I go to France, 
to see you and James, but only that once. I will not 
be a martyr for nothing. The granddaughter of 
Chatham, the niece of the illustrious Pitt, feels herself 

239 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

blush that she was born in England — that England who 
has made her accursed gold the counterpoise to justice ; 
that England who puts weeping humanity in irons, who 
has employed the valour of her troops, destined for the 
defence of her national honour, as the instrument to 
enslave a freeborn people ; and who has exposed to 
ridicule and humiliation a monarch [Louis xviii.] who 
might have gained the goodwill of his subjects if those 
intriguing English had left him to stand or fall upon 
his own merits.' 

The announcement of the arrival of the Princess of 
Wales at Acre, and the possibility that she might extend 
her journey to Sayda, induced Lady Hester to embark 
for Antioch, where she professed to have business with 
the British consul. It was considered an act of great 
daring on her part to go into a district inhabited 
entirely by the Ansarys, on whom she had lately 
wrought so signal a vengeance. But the Ansarys had 
apparently no desire to bring upon themselves a second 
punitive expedition, and though Lady Hester spent 
most of her time in a retired cottage outside the town, 
in defiance of the warning that her life was in danger, 
the tribes forbore to molest her. In September she 
returned to ]\Iar Elias ; and, a few weeks later, Giorgio 
returned from England, bringing with him an English 
surgeon and twenty-seven packing-cases filled with 
presents, to be distributed among Lady Hester's Turkish 
friends and acquaintances. On January 18, 1817, 
Dr. Meryon, having initiated his successor into Eastern 
manners and customs, took leave of his employer, and 
sailed for Europe, little thinking that he would ever set 
foot in Svria again. 



240 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 



PART II 

During the next ten or twelve years, we get but a few 
scanty glimpses of the white Queen of the Desert. 
After Dr. Meryon's departure, Lady Hester removed to 
a house in the village of Dar Joon, or Djoun, a few 
miles from Mar Elias. To this house she added con- 
siderably, laid out some magnificent gardens, and 
enclosed the whole within high walls, after the manner 
of a mediaeval fortress. Here she seems to have passed 
her time in encouraging the Druzes to rise against 
Ibrahim Pasha, intriguing against the British consuls, 
and attempting to bolster up the declining authority of 
the Sultan. In the intervals of political business she 
occupied herself with superintending her building and 
gardening operations, physicking the sick, and tyrannising 
over her numerous servants. At Mar Elias, which she 
still kept in her own hands, she maintained an eccentric 
old Frenchman, General Loustaunau,^ who had formerly 
been in the service of a Hindu rajah, but Avho, in his 
forlorn old age, had wandered to Syria, and there, by 
dint of applying scriptural texts to contemporary 
events, had earned the title of a prophet. Like Samuel 
Brothers, he prophesied marvellous things of Lady 
Hester''s future, which she, rendered credulous by her 
solitary life in a mystic land, where her own power and 
importance were the chief facts in her mental horizon, 
came at length to believe. 

In the Memoirs of' a Babylonian Princess by the 
Emira Asmar, daughter of the Emir Abdallah Asmar, 
the author tells us that as a girl she paid a long visit 
^ Dr. Meryon's spelling. 

Q. 241 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

to the Emir Beshyr, prince of the Druzes. During this 
visit, which apparently took place in the early ' twenties," 
she was sent with a present of fruit to a neighbour's 
house, and there found a guest, a tall and splendid 
figure, arrayed in masculine costume, and engaged in 
smoking a narghila. The stranger, who talked Arabic 
with elegance and fluency, discoursed on the subject of 
astrology, and tried to dissuade the Emira from taking 
a projected journey to the west, where she declared the 
sun had set, and the hearts of the people retained not a 
spark of the virtues of their forefathers. ' Soon after- 
wards," continues the author, ' she rose, and took her 
departure, attended by a large retinue. A spirited 
charger stood at the gate, champing the bit with fiery 
impatience. She put her foot in the stirrup, and vault- 
ing nimbly into the saddle, which she bestrode like a 
man, started off at a rapid pace, galloping over rocks 
and mountains in advance of her suite, with a fearlessness 
and address that would have done honour to a Mame- 
luke." The stranger was, of course, none other than Lady 
Hester Stanhope, who, at that time, was on friendly terms 
with the Emir Beshyr, afterwards her bitterest enemy. 

In 1826 Lady Hester wrote to invite Dr. Meryon to 
return to her service for a time, and he, who seems all 
his life to have ' heard the East a-calling," could not 
resist the invitation, though his movements were now 
hampered by a wife and children. He began at once to 
make preparations for his departure, but was unable to 
start before September 1827. Meanwhile, Lady Hester 
had been gulled by an English traveller, designated as 
' X.' in her letters, who had induced her to believe that 
he was empowered by the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of 
Bedford, and a committee of Freemasons, to offer her 
242 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

such sums as would extricate her out of her embarrass- 
ments, and to settle an income upon her for life. How 
a woman who professed to have an almost supernatural 
insight into the characters and thoughts of men, could 
have been deceived by this story, it is hard to understand ; 
but apparently the difficulties of her situation, occasioned 
by her custom of making large presents to the pashas 
in order to keep up her authority, as well as by her 
benevolence to the poor in her neighbourhood, rendered 
her willing to catch at any straw for help. This ' X.'' 
had promised to send her a hundred purses for her 
current expenses, and to bring out from England masons 
and carpenters to enlarge her dwelling, in order that she 
might entertain the many distinguished people who 
desired to come and see her. In a letter to Dr. 
Meryon on this subject, Lady Hester writes : — 

' If X.^s story is true, and my debts, amounting to 
nearly .^^1 0,000, are to be paid, then I shall go on mak- 
ing sublime and philosophical discoveries, and employing 
myself in deep, abstract studies. In that case I shall 
want a mason, carpenter, etc., income made out .£'4000 
a year, and iJ'lOOO more for people like you, and ^£^500 
ready money that I may stand clear. In the event that all 
that has been told me is a lie, ... I shall give up 
everything for life to my creditors, and throw myself as 
a beggar on Asiatic charity, and wander far without 
one parra in my pocket, with the mare from the stable of 
Solomon in one hand, and a sheaf of the corn of Beni- 
Israel in the other. I shall meet death, or that which 
I believe to be written, which no mortal can efface."* 

On September 7, Dr. Meryon and his family em- 
barked at Leghorn for Cyprus, but on nearing Candia 
their merchant brig, which was taking out stores to the 

243 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

Turks, was attacked by a Greek vessel, whose officers 
took possession of the cargo, and also of all the 
passengers' property, except that belonging to the 
English party, which they left unmolested. The Italian 
captain was obliged to put back to Leghorn, and here 
Dr. Meryon heard the news of the battle of Navarino, 
and of the shelter afforded by Lady Hester Stanhope to 
two hundred refugee Europeans from Sayda. By this 
time she was at daggers-drawn with the Emir Beshyr, 
whose rival she had helped and protected. The Emir 
revenged himself by publishing in the village an order 
that all her native servants were to return to their 
homes, upon pain of losing their property and their 
lives. ' I gave them all their option,' she writes. ' And 
most of them remained firm. Since that, he has threat- 
ened to seize and murder them here, which he shall not 
do without taking my life too. Besides this, he has 
given orders in all the villages that men, women, and 
children who render me the smallest service shall be cut 
in a thousand pieces. My servants cannot go out, and 
the peasants cannot approach the house. Therefore, 
I am in no very pleasant situation, being deprived of 
the necessary supplies of food, and what is worse, 
of water ; for all the water here is brought on mules"* 
backs up a great steep.' 

Dr. Meryon was unable to resume his voyage at this 
time, but in 1828, the news that a malignant fever 
had attacked the household at Joon, and carried off 
Lady Hester's companion. Miss Williams, gave rise to 
fresh plans for a visit to Syria. The doctor had, how- 
ever, so much difficulty in overcoming his wife's fears 
of the voyage, that it was not until November, 1830, 
that he could induce her to embark at Marseilles on a 
244 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

vessel bound for the East. The party arrived at 
Beyrout on December 8, and found that Lady Hester 
had sent camels and asses to bring them on their way, 
together with a characteristic note to the effect that it 
would give her much pleasure to see the doctor, but 
that, as for his family, they must not expect any 
other attentions than such as would make them com- 
fortable in their new home. She hoped that Dr. 
Meryon would not take this ill, as she had warned him 
that she did not think English ladies could make them- 
selves happy in Syria, and, therefore, he who had chosen 
to bring them must take the consequences. This letter 
was but the first of a long series of affronts put upon 
Mrs. Meryon, the result of Lady Hester's dislike of her 
own sex, and probably also of her objection to the 
presence of another Englishwoman in a spot where she 
had reigned so long as the only specimen of her race. 

A cottage had been provided in the village of Joon 
for the travellers, and the ladies were escorted thither 
by the French secretary, while the doctor hastened to 
report himself to Lady Hester, who received him with 
the greatest cordiality, kissing him on both cheeks, and 
placing him beside her on the sofa. Remembering her 
overweening pride of birth, he was astonished at his 
reception, more especially as, in the early part of her 
travels, she had never even condescended to take his 
arm, that honour being reserved exclusively for members 
of the aristocracy. He found her ladyship in good 
health and spirits, but barely provided with the neces- 
saries of life, having been robbed of nearly all her 
articles of value by the native servants during her last 
illness. A rush-bottomed chair, a deal table, dishes of 
common yellow earthenware, bone-handled knives and 

245 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

forks, and two or three silver spoons, were all that 
remained of her former grandeur, and the dinner was on 
a par with the furniture. 

The house, which had been hired at a rental of £20 
from a Turkish merchant, had been greatly enlarged, 
and the gardens, with their summer-houses, covered 
alleys, and serpentine walks, were superior to most English 
gardens of the same size. Lady Hester's constant out- 
lay in building arose from her idea that people would 
fly to her for succour and protection during the revolu- 
tions that she believed to be impending all over the 
world ; her camels, asses, and mules were kept with the 
same view, and her servants were taught to look forward 
with awe to events of a supernatural nature, when their 
services and energies would be taxed to the utmost. In 
choosing a solitary life in the wilderness, far removed 
from all the comforts and pleasures of civilisation. Lady 
Hester seems to have been actuated by her craving for 
absolute power, which could not be gratified in any 
European community. It was her pleasure to dwell 
apart, surrounded by dependants and slaves, and out of 
reach of that influence and restraint which are neces- 
sarily endured by each member of a civilised society. 
She had become more violent in her temper than 
formerly, and treated her servants with great severity 
when they were negligent of their duties. Her maids 
and female slaves she punished summarily, and boasted 
that there was nobody who could give such a slap in 
the face, when required, as she could. At Mar Elias 
her servants, when tired of her tyranny, frequently 
absconded by night, and took refuge in Sayda, only two 
miles away ; but at Dar Joon their retreat was cut off" 
by mountain tracts, inhabited only by wolves and 
246 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

jackals, and they were consequently almost helpless in 
the hands of their stern mistress. The establishment at 
this time consisted of between thirty and forty servants, 
labourers, and slaves, most of whom are described as 
dirty, lazy, and dishonest. Between them they did 
badly the work that half-a-dozen Europeans would have 
done respectably, but then the Europeans would not 
have stood the slaps and scoldings that the natives took 
as a matter of course. 

For the last fifteen years Lady Hester had seldom 
left her bed till between two and five o'clock in the 
afternoon, nor returned to it before the same hour 
next morning ; while for four years she had never 
stirred beyond the precincts of her own domain, though 
she took some air and exercise in the garden. Except 
when she was asleep, her bell was incessantly ringing, 
her servants were running to and fro, and the "whole 
house was kept in commotion. During the greater 
part of the day she sat up in bed, writing, talking, 
scolding, and interviewing her work-people. Few of 
her employes escaped from her presence without reproof, 
and as no one was allowed to exercise his own discretion 
in his work, her directing spirit was always in the full 
flow of activity. ' On one and the same day,"' says Dr. 
Meryon, ' I have known her to dictate papers that con- 
cerned the political welfare of a pashalik, and descend 
to trivial details about the composition of a house-paint, 
the making of butter, drenching a sick horse, choosing 
lambs, or cutting out a maid's apron. The marked 
characteristic of her mind was the necessity that she 
laboured under of incessantly talking."* Her conversa- 
tions, we are told, frequently lasted for seven or eight 
hours at a stretch, and at least one of her visitors was 

247 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

kept so long in discourse that he fainted away with 
fati«ue. Dr. Mervon bears witness to her marvellous 
colloquial powers, her fund of anecdote, and her talent 
for mimicry, but observes that every one who conversed 
with her retired humbled from her presence, since her 
language was always calculated to bring men down to their 
proper level, to strip off affectation, and to expose conceit. 

At this time her political influence was on the wane, 
but a few years previously, when her financial affairs 
were in a more flourishing condition, and when it was 
observed that the pashas valued her opinion and feared 
her censure, she had obtained an almost despotic power 
over the neighbouring tribes. A remarkable proof of 
her personal courage, and also of the supernatural 
awe Avith which she was regarded, was shown by her 
open defiance of the Emir Beshyr, in whose princi- 
pality she lived, but who was unable to reduce her, 
either by threats or persecution, to even a nominal 
submission to his rule. Not only did she give public 
utterance to her contemptuous opinion of the Emir, 
but she openly assisted his relation and rival, the 
Sheikh Beshyr ; yet no vengeance either of the bow- 
string or the poisoned cup rewarded her rebellion or 
her intrigues. 

Her religious views, at this time, were decidedly 
complicated in character. She firmly believed in 
astrology, of which she had made a special study, and 
to some extent in demonology. But more remarkable 
was her faith in the early coming of a Messiah, or 
Mahedi, on which occasion she expected to play a 
glorious part. The prophecies of Samuel Brothers and 
of General Loustaunau had taken firm possession of her 
mind, more especially since their words had been corro- 
248 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

borated by a native soothsayer, Metta by name, who 
brought her an Arabic book which, he said, contained 
allusions to herself. Finding a credulous listener, he 
read and expounded a passage relating to a European 
woman who was to come and live on Mount Lebanon 
at a certain epoch, and obtain power and influence 
greater than a sultan's. A boy without a father was 
to join her there, whose destiny was to be fulfilled 
under her wing ; while the coming of the Mahedi, who 
was to ride into Jerusalem on a horse born saddled, 
would be preceded by famine, pestilence, and other 
calamities. For a long time Lady Hester was per- 
suaded that the Due de Reichstadt was the boy in 
question, but after his death she fixed upon another 
youth. In expectation of the coming of the Mahedi 
she kept two thoroughbred mares, which no one was 
suffered to mount. One of these animals, named Laila, 
had a curious malformation of the back, not unlike a 
Turkish saddle in shape, and was destined by its mistress 
to bear the Mahedi into Jerusalem, while on the other. 
Lulu, Lady Hester expected to ride by his side on the 
great day. ' Hundreds and thousands of distressed 
persons,"* she was accustomed to say, ' will come to me for 
assistance and shelter. I shall have to wade in blood, 
but it is the will of God, and I shall not be afraid.' 
Borne up by these glorious expectations, she never dis- 
cussed her debts, her illnesses, and her other trials, 
without at the same time picturing to herself a brighter 
future, when the neglect with which she had been 
treated by her family would meet with its just punish- 
ment, and her star would rise again to gladden the 
world, and more especially those who had been faithful 
to her in the time of adversity. 

249 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

As soon as Mrs. Meryon was settled in her new 
home, and had recovered from the fatigue of the 
journey, Lady Hester appointed a day for her reception. 
What happened at the momentous interview we are 
not told, except that at the close Lady Hester attired 
her visitor in a handsome Turkish spencer of gold 
brocade, and wound an embroidered muslin turban 
round her head. Unfortunately, Mrs. Meryon, not 
understanding the Eastern custom of robing honoured 
guests, took off the garments before she went away, 
and laid them on a table, a grievous breach of etiquette 
in her hostess's eyes. Still, matters went on fairly 
smoothly until, about the end of January, a messenger 
came from Damascus to ask that Dr. Meryon might be 
allowed to go thither to cure a friend of the pasha''s, 
who had an affection of the mouth. Lady Hester was 
anxious that the doctor should obey the call, but, 
greatly to her annoyance, he entirely declined to leave 
his wife and children alone for three or four weeks in 
a strange land, where they could not make themselves 
understood by the people about them. In vain Lady 
Hester tried to frighten Mrs. Meryon into consenting 
to her husband's departure by assuring her that there 
were Dervishes who could inflict all sorts of evil on 
her by means of charms, if she persisted in her refusal. 
Mrs. Meryon quietly replied that her husband could go 
if he chose, but that it would not be with her good- 
will. From that hour was begun a system of hostility 
towards the doctor's wife, which never ceased until her 
departure from the country. 

Lady Hester was not above taking a leaf out of the 
book of her own enemy, the Emir Beshyr, for she used 
her influence to prevent the villagers from supplying 
250 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

the wants of the recalcitrant family, who now began to 
make preparations for their departure. They were 
obliged, however, to wait for remittances from England, 
and also for Lady Hester's consent to their leaving 
Joon, since none of the natives would have dared lend 
their camels or mules for such a purpose, and even the 
consular agents at Sayda would have declined to mix 
themselves up in any business which might bring upon 
them the vengeance of the Queen of the Desert. Mean- 
while, a truce seems to have been concluded between 
the principals, and Lady Hester again invited the 
doctor's visits, contenting herself with sarcastic remarks 
about henpecked husbands, and the caprices of foolish 
women. She graciously consented to dispense with his 
services about the beginning of April, and promised to 
engage a vessel at Sayda to convey him and his family 
to Cyprus. Before his departure she produced a list 
of her debts, which then amounted to =£"14,000. The 
greater part of this sum, which had been borrowed at 
a high rate of interest from native usurers, had been 
spent in assisting Abdallah Pasha, the family of the 
Sheikh Beshyr, and many other victims of political 
malignity. 

The unwonted luxury of an admiring and submissive 
listener led the lonely woman to discourse of the glories 
of her youth, and the virtues of her hero-in-chief, 
William Pitt. She spoke of his passion for Miss Eden, 
daughter of Lord Auckland, who, she said, was the 
only woman she could have wished him to marry. 
' Poor Mr. Pitt almost broke his heart, when he gave 
her up,' she declared. ' But he considered that she 
was not a woman to be left at will when business 
might require it, and he sacrificed his feelings to his 

251 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

sense of public duty. ..." There were also other 
reasons," Mr. Pitt would say ; " there is her mother, 
such a chatterer ! — and then the family intrigues. I 
can't keep them out of my house ; and, for my king 
and country's sake, I must remain a free man." Yet 
Mr. Pitt was a man just made for domestic life, who 
would have enjoyed retirement, digging his own garden, 
and doing it cleverly too. . . . He had so much urbanity 
too ! I recollect returning late from a ball, when he 
was gone to bed fatigued ; there were others besides 
myself, and we made a good deal of noise. I said to 
him next morning, " I am afraid we disturbed you last 
night." " Not at all," he replied ; " I was dreaming of 
the masque of Comus, and when I heard you all so 
gay, it seemed a pleasant reality. . . ." Nobody would 
have suspected how much feeling he had for people's 
comforts, who came to see him. Sometimes he would 
say to me, " Hester, you know we have got such a one 
coming down. I believe his wound is hardly well yet, 
and I heard him say that he felt much relieved by 
fomentations of such an herb ; perhaps you will see 
that he finds in his chamber all that he wants." Of 
another he would say, " I think he drinks asses' milk ; 
I should like him to have his morning draught." And 
I, who was born with such sensibility that I must fidget 
myself about everybody, was sure to exceed his wishes.' 

After describing Mr. Pitt's kindness and considera- 
tion towards his household, Lady Hester related a 
pathetic history of a faithful servant, who, in the 
pecuniary distress of his master, had served him for 
several years with the purest disinterestedness. ' I was 
so touched by her eloquent and forcible manner of 
recounting the story,' writes the soft-hearted doctor, 
^52 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

' and with the application I made of it to my own 
tardiness in going to her in her distress, together with 
my present intention of leaving her, that I burst into 
tears, and wept bitterly. She soothed my feelings, 
endeavoured to calm my emotions, and disclaimed all 
intention of conveying any allusion to me. This led 
her to say how little malice she ever entertained towards 
any one, even those who had done her injury, much less 
towards me, who had always shown my attachment to 
her ; and she added that, even now, although she was 
going to lose me, her thoughts did not run so much on 
her own situation as on what would become of me ; and 
I firmly believed her.** 

Dr. Meryon sailed from Sayda on April 7, 1831, 
and for the next six years we only hear of the strange 
household on Mount Lebanon through the reports of 
chance visitors. After the siege of Acre by Ibrahim 
Pasha in the winter of 1831-32, the remnant of the 
population fled to the mountains, and Lady Hester, 
whose hospitality was always open to the distressed, 
declares that for three years her house was like the 
Tower of Babel. In 1832 Lamartine paid a visit to 
Joon, which he has described in his Voyage en Orient. 
He seems to have been graciously received, though his 
hostess candidly informed him that she had never heard 
his name before. He explained, rather to her amuse- 
ment, that he had written verses Avhich were in the 
mouths of thousands of his countrymen, and she having 
read his character and destiny, assured him that his 
Arabian descent was proved by the high arch of his 
instep, and that, like every Arab, he was a poet by 
nature. Lamartine, in return, represents himself as 
profoundly impressed by his interview with this ' Circe 

253 



LADY HESTER STAxNHOPE 

of the East,' denies that he perceived in her any traces 
of insanity, and declares that he should not be surprised 
if a part of the destiny she prophesied for herself were 
realised — at least to the extent of an empire in Arabia, 
or a throne in Jerusalem. 

Lady Hester formed a less favourable opinion of 
M. Lamartine than she allowed him to perceive, and 
she was greatly annoyed at the passages referring to 
herself that appeared in his book. Speaking of him 
and his visit some years later, she observed : ' The 
people of Europe are all, or at least the greater part 
of them, fools, with their ridiculous grins, their affected 
ways, and their senseless habits. . . . Look at M. 
Lamartine getting off his horse half-a-dozen times to 
kiss his dog, and take him out of his bandbox to feed 
him, on the route from Beyrout ; the very muleteers 
thought him a fool. And then that way of thrusting 
his hands into his pockets, and sticking out his legs as 
far as he could — what is that like ? M. Lamartine is 
no poet, in my estimation, though he may be an elegant 
versifier ; he has no sublime ideas. Compare his ideas 
with Shakespeare''s — that was indeed a real poet. . . . 
M. Lamartine, with his straight body and straight 
fingers, pointed his toes in my face, and then turned to 
his dog, and held long conversations with him. He 
thouffht to make a great effect when he was here, but 
he was grievously mistaken.'' It may be noted that all 
Lady Hester's male visitors ' pointed their toes in her 
face,' in the hope of being accredited with the arched 
instep that she held to be the most striking proof of long 
descent. Her own instep, she was accustomed to boast, 
was so hig-h that a little kitten could run underneath it. 

A far more lifelike and picturesque portrait of Lady 
254 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

Hester than that by Lamartine has been sketched for 
us by Kinglake in his Eothen. In a charming passage 
which will be familiar to most readers, he relates how 
the name of Lady Hester Stanhope was as delight- 
ful to his childish ears as that of Robinson Crusoe. 
Chief among the excitements of his early days were the 
letters and presents of the Queen of the Desert, who 
as a girl had been much with her grandmother, Lady 
Chatham, at Burton Pynsent, and there had made 
the acquaintance of Miss Woodforde of Taunton, after- 
wards Mrs. Kinglake. The tradition of her high 
spirit and fine horsemanship still lingered in Somer- 
setshire memories, but Kinglake had heard nothing of 
her for many years, when, on arriving at Beyrout in 
1835, he found that her name was in every mouth. 
Anxious to see this romantic vision of his childhood, 
he wrote to Lady Hester, and asked if she would re- 
ceive his mother's son. A few days later, in response 
to a gracious letter of invitation, Kinglake made his 
pilgrimage to Joon. 

The house at this time, after the storm and stress of 
the Egyptian invasion, had the appearance of a deserted 
fortress, and fierce-looking Albanian soldiers were 
hanging about the gates. Kinglake was conducted to 
an inner apartment where, in the dim light, he perceived 
an Oriental figure, clad in masculine costume, which 
advanced to meet him with many and profound bows. 
The visitor began a polite speech which he had prepared 
for his hostess, but presently discovered that the 
stranger was only her Italian attendant, Lunardi, who 
had conferred on himself a medical title and degree. 
Lady Hester had given orders that her guest should 
rest and dine before being introduced to her, and he 

255 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

tells us that, in spite of the homeliness of her domestic 
arrangements, he found both the wine and the cuisine 
very good. After dinner he was ushered into the 
presence of his hostess, who welcomed him cordially, 
and had exactly the appearance of a prophetess, ' not 
the divine Sibyl of Domenichino, but a good, business- 
like, practical prophetess/ Her face was of astonish- 
ing whiteness, her dress a mass of white linen loosely 
folded round her like a surplice. As he gazed upon 
her, he recalled the stories that he had heard of 
her early days, of the capable manner in which she 
had arranged the political banquets and receptions 
of Pitt, and the awe with which the Tory country 
gentlemen had regarded her. That awe had been 
transferred to the sheikhs and pashas of the East, but 
now that, with age and poverty, her earthly power was 
fading aAvay, she had created for herself a spiritual 
kingdom. 

After a few inquiries about her Somersetshire friends, 
the prophetess soared into loftier spheres, and dis- 
coursed of astrology and other occult sciences. ' For 
hours and hours this wonderful white woman poured 
forth her speech, for the most part concerning sacred 
and profane mysteries.' From time to time she would 
swoop down to worldly topics, ' and then,' as her 
auditor frankly observes, ' I was interested.' She de- 
scribed her life in the Arab camps, and explained that 
her influence over the tribes was partly due to her long 
sight, a quality held in high esteem in the desert, and 
partly to a brusque, downright manner, which is always 
effective with Orientals. She professed to have fasted 
physically and mentally for years, living only on milk, 
and reading neither books nor newspapers. Her unholy 
256 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

claim to supremacy in the spiritual kingdom was based, 
in Kinglake''s opinion, on her fierce, inordinate pride, 
perilously akin to madness, though her mind was too 
strong to be entirely overcome. As a proof of Lady 
Hester's high courage, he notes the fact that, after the 
fall of Acre, her house was the only spot in Syria and 
Palestine where the will of Mehemet Ali and his fierce 
lieutenant was not law. Ibrahim Pasha had demanded 
that the Albanian soldiers should be given up, and their 
protectress had challenged him to come and take them. 
This hillock of Dar Joon always kept its freedom as 
long as Chatham's granddaughter lived, and Mehemet 
Ali confessed that the Englishwoman had given him 
more trouble than all the insurgents of Syria. King- 
lake did not see the famous sacred mares, but before his 
departure he was shown the gardens by the Italian 
secretary, who was in great distress of mind because he 
could not bring himself to believe implicitly in his 
employer's divine attributes. He said that Lady Hester 
was regarded with mingled respect and dislike by the 
neighbours, whom she oppressed by her exactions. The 
few 'respected' inhabitants of Mount Lebanon ap- 
parently claimed the right to avail themselves of their 
neighbours' goods ; and the White Queen's establish- 
ment was supported by contributions from the surround- 
ing villages. This is quite a different account from 
that given by Dr. Meryon, who always represents Lady 
Hester as a generous benefactress, admired and adored 
in all the country-side. 

In 1836 Lady Hester discovered another mare's nest 

in the shape of a legacy which she chose to believe 

was being kept from her by her enemies. In August 

of this year she wrote to Dr. Meryon, who was then 

R 257 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

living at Nice, and invited him to come and assist her 
in settling her debts, and getting possession of this 
supposititious property. ' A woman of high rank and 
good fortune,' she continues, ' who has built herself a 
palais in a remote part of America, has announced her 
intention of passing the rest of her life with me, so 
much has she been struck with my situation and 
conduct.^ She is nearly of my age, and thirty-seven 
years ago — I being personally unknown to her — was so 
taken with my general appearance, that she never could 
divest herself of the thoughts of me, which have ever 
since pursued her. At last, informed by M. Lamartine's 
book where I was to be found, she took this extra- 
ordinai'y determination, and in the spring I expect her. 
She is now selling her large landed estate, preparatory 
to her coming. She, as well as Leila the mare, is in 
the prophecy. The beautiful boy has also written, and 
is wandering over the face of the globe till destiny 
marks the period of our meeting. ... I am reckoned 
here the first politician in the world, and by some a sort 
of prophet. Even the Emir wonders, and is astonished, 
for he was not aware of this extraordinary gift ; but yet 
all say — I mean enemies- — that I am worse than a lion 
when in a passion, and that they cannot deny I have 
justice on my side.' 

After his former experience of Lady Hester's hospi- 
tality it is surprising that the doctor should have been 
willing to accept this invitation, and still more surprising 
that his wife should have consented to accompany him 
to Syria. But the East was still ' a-calling,' and the 
almost hypnotic influence which her ladyship exercised 

^ This was the Baroness de Feriat, who did not carry out her 
intention. 

258 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

over her dependants seems to have lost none of its 
efficacy. Accordingly, as soon as the Meryons could 
arrange their affairs, they embarked at Marseilles, land- 
ing at Beyrout on July 1, 1837. Here the doctor 
received a letter from Lady Hester, recommending him 
to leave his family at Beyrout till he could find a house 
for them at Sayda. ' For your sake,' she continued, ' I 
should ever wish to show civility to all who belong to 
you, but caprice I will never interfere with, for from my 
early youth I have been taught to despise it.' Here was 
signal proof that the past had not been forgotten, and 
that war was still to be waged against the unfortunate 
Mrs. Meryon. In defiance of Lady Hester's orders, the 
whole family proceeded to Sayda, whence Dr. Meryon 
rode over to Dar Joon. He received a warm personal 
welcome, but his hostess persisted in her statement that 
there was no house in the village fit for the reception of 
his womenkind, as nearly all had been damaged by recent 
earthquakes. It was finally arranged that Mrs. Meryon 
and her children should go for the present to Mar 
Elias, which was then only occupied by the Prophet 
Loustaunau. 

At this time Lady Hester's financial affairs were 
becoming desperate, and she had even been reduced to 
selling some of her handsome pelisses. Yet she still 
maintained between thirty and forty servants, and when 
it was suggested to her that she might reduce her estab- 
lishment, she was accustomed to reply, ' But my rank ! ' 
Her live-stock included the two sacred mares, three 
' amblers,' five asses, a flock of sheep, and a few cows. 
A herd of a hundred goats had recently been slaughtered 
in one day, because their owner fancied that she was 
being cheated by her goatherd. Now she decided to 

259 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

have the three ' amblers ' shot, because the grooms 
treated them improperly. The under-bailiff' received 
orders to whisper into the ear of each horse before his 
execution, * You have worked enough upon the earth ; 
your mistress fears you might fall, in your old age, into 
the hands of cruel men, and she therefore dismisses you 
from her service/ This order was carried out to the 
letter, with imperturbable gravity. 

After a short experience of the inconvenience of riding 
to and fro between Joon and Mar Elias, Dr. Meryon 
persuaded his employer to allow him to bring his family 
to a cottage in the villag-e ; but the nearer the time 
approached for their arrival, the more slie seemed to 
regret having assented to the arrangement. Frequent 
and scathing were her lectures upon the exigent ways of 
women, who, she argued, should be simple automata, 
moved only by the will and guidance of their masters. 
She lost no opportunity of throwing ridicule on 
Dr. Meryon's desire to have his family near him, in 
order that he might pass his evenings with them, point- 
ing out that ' all sensible men take their meals with 
their wives, and then retire to their own rooms to 
read, write, or do what best pleases them. Nobody is 
such a fool as to moider away his time in the slipslop 
conversation of a pack of women.' Petty jealousies, 
quite inconsistent with her boasted philosophy, were per- 
petually tormenting her. One of the many monopolies 
claimed by her was that of the privilege of bell-ringing. 
The Mahometans, as is well known, never use bells in 
private houses, the usual summons for servants being 
three claps of the hands. But Lady Hester was a 
constant and vehement bell-ringer, and as no one else in 
the country-side possessed house-bells, it was generally 
260 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

believed that the use of them was a special privilege 
granted her by the Porte. She was therefore secretly 
much annoyed when the Meryons presumed to hang up 
bells in their new home. She made no sign of dis- 
pleasure, but one morning it was discovered that the 
ropes had been cut and the bells carried off. Cross- 
examination of the servants elicited the fact that one of 
Lady Hester's emissaries had arrived late at night, 
wrenched off the bells, and taken them away. Some 
weeks later the Lady of Joon confessed that she had 
instigated the act, and declared that if the Meryons"" 
bells had hung much longer her own would not have 
been attended to. 

Soon after the doctor's arrival. Lady Hester had 
dictated a letter to Sir Francis Burdett, in whom she 
placed great confidence, informing him of the property 
that she believed was being withheld from her, and 
requesting him to make inquiries into the matter. 
When not engaged in correspondence, discussing her 
debts, and scolding her servants, she was pouring out 
floods of conversation, chiefly reminiscences of her youth 
and diatribes against the men and manners of the present 
day, into the ears of the long-suffering doctor. ' From 
her manner towards other people,' he observes, ' it would 
have seemed that she was the only person in creation 
privileged to abuse and to command ; others had nothing 
to do but to obey. She was haughty and overbearing, 
born to rule, impatient of control, and more at her ease 
when she had a hundred persons to govern than when 
she had only ten. Had she been a man and a soldier, 
she would have been what the French call a hemi sabreu7\ 
for never was any one so fond of wielding weapons, and 
boasting of her capacity for using them, as she was. In 

261 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

her bedroom she always had a mace, which was spiked 
round the head, a steel battle-axe, and a dagger, but 
her favourite weapon was the mace.' Absurd as it may 
sound, it was probably her military vanity that led her 
to belittle the Duke of Wellington, of whose reputation 
she seems to have felt some personal jealousy. Yet 
she bears testimony to the esteem in which ' Arthur 
Wellesley " was held by William Pitt. 

' I recollect, one day,' she told the doctor, ' Mr. Pitt 
came into the drawing-room to me, and said, " Oh, how 
I have been bored by Sir Sydney Smith coming with his 
box full of papers, and keeping me for a couple of hours, 
when I had so much to do." I observed to him that 
heroes were generally vain, and that Lord Nelson was so. 
"So he is," replied Mr. Pitt, " but not like Sir Sydney. 
And how different is Arthur Wellesley, who has just 
quitted me ! He has given me such clear details upon 
affairs in India; and he talked of them, too, as if he 
had been a surgeon of a regiment, and had nothing to 
do with them ; so that I know not which to admire 
most, his modesty or his talents, and yet the fate of 
India depends upon them." Then, doctor, when I 
recollect the letter he wrote to Edward Bouverie, in 
which he said he could not come down to a ball because 
his only corbeau coat was so bad he was ashamed to 
appear in it, I reflect what a rise he has had in the 
world. He was at first nothing but what hundreds of 
others are in a country town — he danced hard and drank 
hard. His star has done everything for him, for he is 
not a great general. He is no tactician, nor has he any 
of those great qualities that make a Cassar, a Pompey, 
or even a Bonaparte. As for the battle of Waterloo, 
both French and English have told me that it was a 
262 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

lucky battle for him, but nothing more. I don't think 
he acted well at Paris, nor did the soldiers like him."" 

About the end of October Lady Hester took to her 
bed, and did not leave it till the following March. She 
had suffered from pulmonary catarrh for several years, 
which disappeared in the summer, but returned every 
winter with increased violence. Her practice of frequent 
bleeding had brought on a state of complete emaciation, 
and left very little blood in her body. If she had lived 
like other people, and trusted to the balmy air of Syria, 
Dr. Meryon was of opinion that nothing serious need 
have been apprehended from her illness. But she seldom 
breathed the outer air, and took no exercise except an 
occasional turn in the garden. She was always com- 
plaining that she could get nothing to eat ; yet, in spite 
of her profession (to Kinglake) that she lived entirely on 
milk, we are told that her diet consisted of forcemeat 
balls, meat- pies, and other heavy viands, and that she 
seldom remained half an hour without taking nourish- 
ment of some kind. ' I never knew a human being who 
took nourishment so frequently,' writes Dr. Meryon, 
' and may not this in some measure account for her 
frequent ill-humour ? ' 

During; her illness the doctor read aloud Sir Nathaniel 
WraxalPs Memoirs and the Me7noirs of a Peeress, edited 
by Lady Charlotte Bury, both of which books dealt with 
persons whom Lady Hester had known in her youth. 
In return she regaled him with stories of her own glory, 
of Mr. Pitt's virtues, of the objectionable habits of the 
Princess of Wales, and of the meanness of the Regent in 
inviting himself to dinner with gentlemen who could not 
afford to entertain him, the whole pleasantly flavoured 
by animadversions on the social presumption of medical 

263 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

men, and descriptions of the methods bj which formerly 
they were kept in their proper place by aristocratic 
patients. At this time, the beginning of 1838, Lady 
Hester was anxiously expecting an answer from Sir 
Francis Burdett about her property, and, hearing from 
the English consul at Sayda that a packet had arrived 
for her from Beyrout, which was to be delivered into 
her own hands, her sanguine mind was filled with the 
hope of coming prosperity. But when the packet was 
opened, instead of the long-expected missive from Sir 
Francis, it proved to be an official statement from 
Colonel Campbell, Consul -General for Egypt, that in 
consequence of an application made to the British 
Government by one of Lady Hester"'s chief creditors, an 
order had come from Lord Palmerston that her pension 
was to be stopped unless the debt was paid. When she 
read the letter Dr. Meryon feared an outburst of fury, 
but Lady Hester, who, for once, was beyond violence, 
began calmly to discuss the enormity of the conduct 
both of Queen and Minister. 

' My grandfather and Mr. Pitt,"* she said, ' did some- 
thing to keep the Brunswick family on the throne, and 
yet the granddaughter of the old king, without hearing 
the circumstances of my getting into debt, or whether 
the story is true, sends to deprive me of my pension in 
a strange land, where I may remain and starve. . . . 
I should like to ask for a public inquiry into my debts, 
and for what I have contracted them. Let them com- 
pare the good I have done in the cause of humanity 
and science with the Duke of Kent's debts. I wonder if 
Lord Palmerston is the man I recollect — a young man 
from college, who was always hanging about waiting to 
be introduced to Mr, Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to say, " Ah, 
264 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

very well ; we will ask him to dinner some day." 
Perhaps it is an old grudge that makes him vent his 
spite.' Colonel CampbelTs letter had given the poor 
lady's heart, or rather her pride, a fatal stab, and the 
indignity with which she had been treated preyed upon 
her health and spirits. She now determined to send an 
ultimatum to the Queen, which was to be published in 
the newspapers if ministers refused to lay it before her 
Majesty. This document, which was dated February 
12, 1838, ran as follows : — 

' Your Majesty will allow me to say that few things 
are more disgraceful and inimical to royalty than giving 
commands without examining all their different bearings, 
and casting, without reason, an aspersion upon the 
integrity of any branch of a family that had faithfully 
served their country and the House of Hanover. As no 
inquiries have been made of me of what circumstances 
induced me to incur the debts alluded to, I deem it 
unnecessary to enter into any details on the subject. I 
shall not allow the pension given by your royal grandfather 
to be stopped by force ; but I shall resign it for the 
payment of my debts, and with it the name of British 
subject, and the slavery that is at present annexed to it ; 
and as your Majesty has given publicity to the business 
by your orders to your consular agents, I surely cannot 
be blamed for following your royal example. 

' Hester Lucy Stanhope."" 

This was accompanied by a long letter to the Duke 
of Wellington, in which Lady Hester detailed her 
services in the East, and expressed her indignation at 
the treatment she had received. She was now left with 
only a few pounds upon which to maintain her house- 

265 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

hold until March, when she could draw for i,^300, 
apparently the quarter''s income from a legacy left her 
by her brother, but of this sum d£'200 was due to a 
Greek merchant at Beyrout. The faithful doctor col- 
lected all the money he had in his house, about eleven 
pounds, and brought it to her for her current expenses, 
but with her usual impracticability she gave most of it 
away in charity. Still no letter came from Sir Francis 
Burdett, and the unfortunate lady, old, sick, and wasted 
to a skeleton, lay on her sofa and lamented over her 
troubles in a fierce, inhuman fashion, like a wounded 
animal at bay. In the course of time a reply came from 
Lord Palmerston, in which he stated that he had laid 
Lady Hester's letter before the Queen, and explained to 
her Majesty the circumstances that might be supposed 
to have led to her writing it. The communications to 
which she referred were, he continued, suggested by 
nothing but a desire to save her from the embarrass- 
ments that might arise if her creditors were to call 
upon the Consul-General to act according to the strict 
line of his duty. This letter did nothing towards 
assuaging Lady Hester's wrath. In her reply she sar- 
castically observed: — 

' If your diplomatic despatches are all as obscure as 
the one that now lies before me, it is no wonder that 
England should cease to have that proud preponderance 
in her foreign relations which she once could boast of. 
... It is but fair to make your lordship aware that, if 
by the next packet there is nothing definitely settled 
respecting my affairs, and I am not cleared in the eyes 
of the world of aspersions, intentionally or unintention- 
ally thrown upon me, I shall break up my household, 
and build up the entrance-gate to my premises ; there 
266 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

remaining as if I was in a tomb till my character has 
been done justice to, and a public acknowledgment put 
in the papers, signed and sealed by those who have 
aspersed me. There is no trifling with those who have 
Pitt blood in their veins upon the subject of integrity, 
nor expecting that their spirit would ever yield to the 
impertinent interference of consular authority, etc., etc' 
It must be owned that there is a touch of unconscious 
humour in Lady Hester's terrible threat of walling her- 
self up, a proceeding which would only make herself 
uncomfortable and leave her enemies at peace. 

For the present matters went on much as usual 
at Dar Joon. No household expenses were curtailed, 
and thirty native servants continued to cheat their 
mistress and idle over their work. In March, that 
perambulating princeling, his Highness of Puckler- 
Muskau, arrived at Sayda, whence he wrote a letter 
to Lady Hester, begging to be allowed to pay his 
homage to the Queen of Palmyra and the niece of the 
great Pitt. ' I have the presumption to believe, madam,' 
he continued, ' that there must be some affinity of char- 
acter between us. For, like you, my lady, I look for our 
future salvation from the East, where nations still nearer 
to God and to nature can alone, some day, purify the 
rotten civilisation of decrepid Europe, in which every- 
thing is artificial, and where we are menaced with a new 
kind of barbarism — not that with which states begin, 
but with which they end. Like you, madam, I believe 
that astrology is not an empty science, but a lost one. 
Like you, I am an aristocrat by birth and by principle ; 
because I find a marked aristocracy in nature. In a 
word, madam, like you, I love to sleep by day and be 
stirring by night. There I stop ; for in mind, energy of 

267 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

character, and in the mode of life, so singular and so 
dignified, which you lead, not every one who would can 
resemble Lady Hester Stanhope."' 

Lady Hester was flattered by this letter, and told 
the doctor that he must ride into Sayda to see the 
prince, and tell him that she was too ill to receive 
him at present, but would endeavour to do so a 
few weeks later. The prince was established with 
his numerous suite in the house of a merchant of 
Sayda. Mehemet Ali had given him a special fir- 
man, requiring all official persons to treat him in a 
manner suitable to his rank, his whole expenditure 
being defrayed by cheques on the Viceroy's treasury. 
The prince, unlike most other distinguished travellers 
who were treated with the same honour, took the 
firman strictly according to the letter, and could boast 
of having traversed the whole of Egypt and Syria with 
all the pomp of royalty, and without having expended 
a single farthing. Dr. Meryon describes his Highness 
as a tall man of about fifty years of age, distinguished 
by an unmistakable air of birth and breeding. He 
wore a curious mixture of Eastern and Western costume, 
and had a tame chameleon crawling about his pipe, 
with which he was almost as much occupied as M. 
Lamartine with his lapdog. The prince stated that 
he had almost made up his mind to settle in the East, 
since Europe was no longer the land of liberty. ' I will 
build myself a house,' he said, ' get what I want from 
Europe, make arrangements for newspapers, books, etc., 
and choose some delightful situation ; but I think it 
will be on Mount Lebanon.' 

In his volume of travels in the East called Die 
RnckJcehr, Prince Plickler-Muksau has given an amusing 
268 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

account of the negotiations that passed between himself 
and Lady Hester on the subject of his visit. For once 
the niece of Pitt had found her match in vanity and 
arrogance ; and if the prince's book had appeared in 
her lifetime, it is certain that she would not Jong have 
survived it. His Highness describes how he bided his 
time, as though he were laying siege to a courted 
beauty, and almost daily bombarded the Lady of Joon 
with letters calculated to pique her curiosity by their 
frank and original style. At last, ' in order to be rid 
of him,' as she jokingly said. Lady Hester consented to 
receive him on a certain day, which, from his star, 
she deemed propitious to their meeting. Thereupon 
the prince, who intended that his visit should be 
desired, not suffered, wrote to say that he was setting 
out for an expedition into the desert, but that on his 
return he would come to Joon, not for one day, but 
for a week. This impertinence was rewarded by per- 
mission to come at his own time. 

Great preparations were made for the entertainment 
of this distinguished visitor. The scanty contents of 
the store and china cupboards Avere spread out before 
the lady of the house, who infused activity into the 
most sluggish by smart strokes from her stick. The 
epithets of beast, rascal, and the like, were dealt out 
with such freedom and readiness, as to make the 
European part of her audience sensible of the richness 
and variety of the Arabian language. On Easter 
Monday, April 15, the prince, followed by a part of 
his suite, and five mule-loads of baggage, rode into 
the courtyard. He wore an immense Leghorn hat 
lined with green taffetas, a Turkish scarf over his 
shoulders, and blue pantaloons of ample dimensions. 

269 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

From the excellent fit of his Parisian boots, it was 
evident that he felt his pretensions to a thoroughbred 
foot were now to be magisterially decided. The prince 
has given his own impression of his hostess, Avhom he 
describes as a thorough woman of the world, with 
manners of Oriental dignity and calm. With her pale, 
regular features, dark, fiery eyes, great height, and 
sonorous voice, she had the appearance of an ancient 
Sibyl ; yet no one, he declares, could have been more 
natural and unaffected in manner. She told him that 
since she had lost her money, she had lived like a 
dervish, and assimilated herself to the ways of nature. 
* My roses are my jewels,"* she said, ' the sun and moon 
my clocks, fruit and water my food and drink. I see 
in your face that you are a thorough epicure ; how 
will you endure to spend a week with me ? " The 
prince, who had already dined, replied that he found she 
did not keep her guests on fruit and water, and assured 
her that English poverty was equivalent to German 
riches. He spent six or seven hours tete-a-tete Avith 
his hostess each evening of his stay, and declares that 
he was astonished at the originality and variety of her 
conversation. He had the audacity to ask her if the 
Arab chief who accompanied her to Palmyra had been 
her lover, but she, not ill-pleased, assured him that 
there was no truth in the report, which at one time 
had been generally believed. She said that the Arabs 
regarded her neither as man or woman, but as a being 
apart. 

Before leaving, the prince introduced his 'harem,' 

consisting of two Abyssinian slaves, to Lady Hester, 

and was presented, in his turn, to the sacred mares, 

which had lost their beauty, and grown gross and 

270 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

unwieldy under their reghne of gentle exercise and 
unlimited food. Leila licked the princess hand when 
he caressed her, and Leila's mistress was thereby con- 
vinced that her guest was a ' chosen vessel.' She 
confided to him all her woes, the neglect of her re- 
lations and the ill-treatment of the Government, and 
gave him copies of the correspondence about her 
pension, which he promised to publish in a German news- 
paper. To Dr. Meryon she waxed quite enthusiastic over 
his Highnesses personal attractions, the excellent cut 
of his coat, and the handiness with which he performed 
small services. ' I could observe,' writes the doctor, 
towards the end of the visit, ' that she had already 
begun to obtain an ascendency over the prince, such as 
she never failed to do over those who came within the 
sphere of her attraction ; for he was less lofty in his 
manner than he had been at first, and she seemed to 
have gained in height, and to be more disposed to play 
the queen than ever.' 

This, alas, was the last time that Lady Hester had 
the opportunity of playing the queen, or entertaining a 
distinguished guest at Dar Joon. In June, when the 
packet brought no news of her imaginary property, and 
no apology from Queen or Premier, she began at last to 
despair. ' The die is cast,' she told Dr. Meryon, ' and 
the sooner you take yourself off the better. I have no 
money ; you can be of no use to me — I shall write no 
more letters, and shall break up my establishment, wall 
up my gate, and, with a boy and girl to wait upon 
me, resign myself to my fate. Tell your family they 
may make their preparations, and be gone in a 
month's time.' Early in July Sir Francis Burdett's 
long-expected letter arrived, but brought with it no 

271 



LADY HESTER STAiNHOPE 

consolation. He could tell nothing of the legacy, but 
wrote in the soothing, evasive terms that might be sup- 
posed suitable to an elderly lady who was not quite 
accountable for her ideas or actions. As there was now 
no hope of any improvement in her affairs, Lady Hester 
decided to execute her threat of walling up her gate- 
way, a proceeding which, she was unable to perceive, 
injured nobody but herself. She directed the doctor 
to pay and dismiss her servants, with the exception 
of two maids and two men, and then sent him to 
Beyrout to inform the French consul of her intention. 
On his return to Joon he found that Lady Hester had 
already hired a vessel to take himself and his family 
from Sayda to Cyprus. He was reluctant to leave her 
in solitude and wretchedness, but knowing that when 
once her mind was made up, nothing could shake her 
resolution, he employed the time that remained to him 
in writing her letters, setting her house in order, and 
taking her instructions for commissions in Europe. He 
also begged to be allowed to lend her as much money 
as he could spare, and she consented to borrow a sum 
of 2000 piastres (about oC80), which she afterwards 
repaid. 

On July 30, 1838, the masons arrived, and the 
entrance-gate was walled up with a kind of stone screen, 
leaving, however, a side-opening just large enough for 
an ass or cow to enter, so that this much-talked-of act 
of self-immurement was more an appearance than a 
reality. On August 6, the faithful doctor took an affec- 
tionate leave of the employer, who, as Prince Piickler- 
Muskau bears witness, was accustomed to treat him 
with icy coldness, and sailed for western climes. To 
the last, he tells us. Lady Hester dwelt with apparent 
272 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

confidence on the approaching advent of the Mahedi, and 
still regarded her mare Leila as destined to bear him into 
Jerusalem, with herself upon Lulu at his side. It is to 
be hoped that the poor lady was able to buoy herself up 
with this belief during the last and most solitary year of 
her disappointed life. About once a month, up to the 
date of her death, she corresponded with Dr. Meryon, 
who was again settled at Nice. Her letters were chiefly 
taken up with commissions, and with shrewd comments 
upon the new books that were sent out to her. 

' I should like to have Miss Pardoe's book on Con- 
stantinople,*' she writes in October, 18S8, ' if it is come 
out for strangers (i.e. in a French translation) ; for I 
fear I should never get through with it myself. This 
just puts me in mind that one of the books I should 
like to have would be Graham's Domestic Medicine ; a 
good Red Book (Peerage, I mean) ; and the book 
about the Prince of Wales. I have found out a person 
who can occasionally read French to me ; so if there 
was any very pleasing French book, you might send 
it — but no Bonapartes or "present times" — and a 
little bi-ochure or two upon baking, pastry, gardening, 
etc. . . . 

^Feh. 9, 1839. — The book you sent me (Diary of the 
Times of George IV., by Lady Charlotte Bury) is inter- 
esting only to those who were acquainted with the 
persons named : all mock taste, mock feeling, etc., but 
that is the fashion. " I am this, I am that " ; who ever 
talked such empty stuff formerly ? I was never named 
by a well-bred person. . . . Miss Pardoe is very excel- 
lent upon many subjects ; only there is too much of 
what the English like — stars, winds, black shades, soft 
sounds, etc. . . . 

s 273 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

' May 6. — Some one — I suppose you — sent me the 
Life of Lord Edward Fitzgei-ald. It is / who could 
give a true and most extraordinary history of all those 
transactions. The book is all stuff. The duchess (Lord 
Edward's mother) was my particular friend, as was also 
his aunt ; I was intimate with all the family, and knew 
that noted Pamela. All the books I see make me sick — 
only catchpenny nonsense. A thousand thanks for the 
promise of my grandfather's letters ; but the book will 
be all spoilt by being edited by young men. First, they 
are totally ignorant of the politics of my grandfather's 
age ; secondly, of the style of the language used at that 
period ; and absolutely ignorant of his secret reasons 
and intentions, and the real or apparent footing he was 
upon with many people, friends or foes. I know all 
that from my grandmother, who was his secretary, and, 
Coutts used to say, the cleverest man of her time in 
politics and business.' 

This was the last letter that Dr. Meryon received from 
his old friend and patroness. She slowly wasted away, 
and died in June 1839, no one being aware of her 
approaching end except the servants about her. The 
news of her death reached Beyrout in a few hours, and 
the English consul, Mr. Moore, and an American mission- 
ary (Mr. Thomson, author of The Land and the Book) 
rode over to Joon to bury her. By her own desire she 
was interred in a grave in her garden, where a son of 
the Prophet Loustaunau had been buried some years 
before. Mr. Thomson has described how he performed 
the last rites at midnight by the light of lanterns and 
torches, and notes the curious resemblance between Lady 
Hester's funeral service and that of the man she loved, 
Sir John Moore. Together with the consul, he examined 
274 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

the contents of thirty-five rooms, but found nothing but 
old saddles, pipes, and empty oil-jars, everything of 
value having been long since plundered by the ser- 
vants. The sacred mares, now grown old and almost 
useless, were sold for a small sum by public auction, 
and only survived for a short time their return to an 
active life. 

In 1845 Dr. Meryon published his so-called Memoirs 
of Lady Heater Stanhope, which are merely an account 
of her later years, and a report of her table-talk at Dar 
Joon. In 1846 he brought out her Travels, which 
were advertised as the supplement and completion of the 
Memoirs. From these works, and from passing notices 
of our heroine, we gain a general impression of wasted 
talents and a disappointed life. That she was more un- 
happy in her solitude than, in her unbending nature, she 
would avow, observes her faithful friend and chronicler, 
the record of the last years of her existence too plainly 
demonstrates. Although she derived consolation in 
retirement from the retrospect of the part she had 
played in her prosperity, still there were moments of 
poignant grief when her very soul groaned within her. 
She was ambitious, and her ambition had been foiled ; 
she loved irresponsible command, but the time had come 
when those over whom she ruled defied her ; she was 
dictatorial and exacting, but she had lost the influence 
which alone makes people tolerate control. She incurred 
debts, and was doomed to feel the degradation conse- 
quent upon them. She thought to defy her own nation, 
and they hurled the defiance back upon her. She 
entertained visionary projects of aggrandisement, and 
was met by the derision of the world. In a word, 
Eady Hester died as she had lived, alone and miserable 

S75 



LADY HESTER STANHOPE 

in a strange land, bankrupt in affection and credit, be- 
cause, in spite of her great gifts and innate benevolence, 
her overbearing temper had alienated friends and kins- 
folk alike, and her pride could endure neither the 
society of equals, nor the restraints and conventions of 
civilised life. 



276 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN 
ENGLAND 




^ 



(A^i/^'U>e 



/-e^-i^ 



,sv^,£i^?, 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN 
ENGLAND 

PART I 

During the early and middle decades of the nineteenth 
century there was no more original and picturesque 
figure among the minor celebrities of Germany — one 
might almost say of Europe — than that of his Highness, 
Hermann Ludwig Heinrich, Prince Piickler-Muskau. 
Throughout his long career we find this princeling play- 
ing many parts — at once an imitation Werter, a senti- 
mental Don Juan, a dandy who out-dressed D'Orsay, a 
sportsman and traveller of Mlinchhausen type, a fashion- 
able author who wrote German with a French accent 
and a warrior who seems to have wandered out of 
the pages of mediaeval romance. Yet with all his mock- 
heroic notoriety, the toller PilcJiler was by no means 
destitute of those practical qualities which tempered 
the Teutonic Romanticism, even in its earliest and most 
extravagant developments. He was skilled in all manly 
exercises, a brave soldier, an intelligent observer, and 
— his most substantial claim to remembrance — the 
father of landscape-gardening in Germany, a veritable 
magician who transformed level wastes into wooded 
landscapes and made the sandy wildernesses blossom 
like the rose. 

279 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

To English readers the prince's name was once 
familiar as the author of Briefe eines Verstorhenen 
(Letters of a Dead Man), which contain a lively 
account of his Highness' sojourn in England and 
Ireland between the years 1826 and 1828. These 
letters, which were translated into English under the 
title of The Tour of a German Prince^ made a sensation, 
favourable and otherwise, in the early ' thirties,' owing 
to the candid fashion in which they dealt with our 
customs and our countrymen. The book received the 
high honour of a complimentary review from the pen 
of the aged Goethe. ' The writer appears to be a 
perfect and experienced man of the world,' observes 
this distinguished critic ; ' endowed with talents and a 
quick apprehension ; formed by a varied social existence, 
by travel and extensive connections. His journey was 
undertaken very recently, and brings us the latest 
intelligence from the countries which he has viewed 
with an acute, clear, and comprehensive eye. We see 
before us a finely-constituted being, born to great 
external advantages and felicities, but in whom a 
lively spirit of enterprise is not united to constancy and 
perseverance ; whence he experiences frequent failure 
and disappointment. . . . The peculiarities of English 
manners and habits are drawn vividly and distinctly, and 
without exaggeration. We acquire a lively idea of that 
wonderful combination, that luxuriant growth — of that 
insular life which is based in boundless wealth and civil 
freedom, in universal monotony and manifold diversity ; 
formal and capricious, active and torpid, energetic and 
dull, comfortable and tedious, the envy and derision of 
the world. Like other unprejudiced travellers of modern 
times, our author is not very much enchanted with the 
280 



PRINCE PtrCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

English form of existence : his cordial and sincere 
admiration is often accompanied by unsparing censure. 
He is by no means inclined to favour the faults and 
weaknesses of the English ; and in this he has the 
greatest and best among themselves upon his side.' 

As these Letters were not written until the prince 
had passed his fortieth year, it will be necessary, before 
considering them in detail, to give a brief sketch of his 
previous career. Hermann Ludwig was the only son of 
Graf von Piickler of Schloss Branitz, and of his wife, 
Clementine, born a Grafin von Gallenberg, and heiress 
to the vast estate of Muskau in Silesia. Both families 
were of immense antiquity, the Piicklers claiming to 
trace their descent from Rudiger von Bechlarn, who 
figures in the Nihelungenl'ied. Our hero was born at 
Muskau in October 1785, and spent, according to his 
own account, a wretched and neglected childhood. His 
father was harsh, miserly, and suspicious ; his mother, 
who was only fifteen when her son was born, is described 
as a frivolous little flirt. The couple, after perpetually 
quarrelling for ten or twelve years, were divorced, by 
mutual consent, in 1797, and the Grafin shortly after- 
wards married one of her numerous admirers, Graf von 
Seydewitz, with whom she lived as unhappily as with 
her first husband. Her little son was educated at 
a Moravian school, and in the holidays was left 
entirely to the care of the servants. After a couple 
of years at the university of Leipzig, he entered the 
Saxon army, and soon became notorious for his good 
looks, his fine horsemanship, his extravagance, and his 
mischievous pranks. Military discipline in time of 
peace proved too burdensome for the young lieutenant, 
who, after quarrelling with his father, getting deeply 

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PRINCE PtrCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

into debt, and embroiling himself with the authorities, 
threw up his commission in 1804. Muskau having 
become much too hot to hold him, he spent the next years 
in travelling about the Continent, always in pecuniary 
difficulties, and seldom free from some sentimental 
entanglement. 

In 1810 Graf Piickler died, and his son stepped into 
a splendid inheritance. Like Prince Hal, the young 
Graf seems to have taken his new responsibilities 
seriously, and to have devoted himself, with only too 
much enthusiasm, to the development and improvement 
of his estates. In the intervals of business he amused 
himself with an endless series of love-affairs, his achieve- 
ments in this respect, if his biographer may be believed, 
more than equalling those of Jupiter and Don Giovanni 
put together. Old and young, pretty and plain, noble 
and humble, native and foreign, all were fish that came 
to the net of this lady-killer, who not only vowed 
allegiance to nearly every petticoat that crossed his 
path, but — a much more remarkable feat — kept up an 
impassioned correspondence with a large selection of his 
charmers. After his death, a whole library of love- 
letters was discovered among his papers, all breathing 
forth adoration, ecstasy or despair, and addressed to the 
Julies, Jeannettes, or Amalies who succeeded one another 
so rapidly in his facile affections. These documents, for 
the most part carefully-corrected drafts of the originals, 
were indorsed, ' Old love-letters, to be used again if 
required ! ' 

In 1813 the trumpet of war sounded the call to 

arms, and the young Graf entered the military service of 

Prussia, and was appointed aide-de-camp to the Duke of 

Saxe- Weimar. He distinguished himself in the Nether- 

282 



PRINCE PtrCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

lands, was present at the taking of Cassel, and in the 
course of the campaign played a part in a new species 
of duel. A French colonel of Hussars, so the story 
goes, rode out of the enemy's lines, and challenged any 
officer in the opposing army to single combat. Puckler 
accepted the challenge, and the duel was fought on 
horseback — presumably with sabres — between the ranks 
of the two armies, the soldiers on either side applauding 
their chosen champion. At length, after a fierce struggle, 
Germany triumphed, and the brave Frenchman bit the 
dust. Whether the tale be true or apocryphal, it is 
certain that numerous decorations were conferred upon 
the young officer for his brilliant services, that he was 
promoted to the rank of colonel, and appointed civil 
and military governor of Bruges. Puckler took part in 
the triumphal entry of the Allies into Paris, and after- 
wards accompanied the Duke of Saxe-Weimar to London, 
where he shared in all the festivities of the wonderful 
season of 1815, studied the English methods of land- 
scape-gardening, and made an unsuccessful attempt to 
marry a lady of rank and fortune. 

After his return to Muskau the Graf continued his 
work on his estate, which, in spite of a sandy soil and 
other disadvantages, soon became one of the show-places 
of Germany. Having discovered a spring of mineral 
water, he built a pump-room, a theatre, and a gaming- 
saloon, and named the establishment Hermannsbad. The 
invalids who frequented the Baths must have enjoyed a 
lively ' cure,"* for besides theatrical performances, illu- 
minations, fireworks and steeplechases, the Graf was 
always ready to oblige with some sensational achieve- 
ment. On one occasion he leapt his horse over the 
parapet of a bridge into the river, and swam triumphantly 

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PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

ashore ; while on another he galloped up the steps of 
the Casino, played and won a coup at the tables without 
dismounting, and then galloped down again, arriving 
at the bottom with a whole neck, but considerable 
damage to his horse's legs. 

In 1816 Puckler became acquainted with Lucie, 
Grafin von Pappenheim, a daughter of Prince Harden- 
berg, Chancellor of Prussia. The Grafin, a well-preserved 
woman of forty, having parted from her husband, was 
living at Berlin with her daughter, Adelheid, afterwards 
Princess Carolath, and her adopted daughter, Herminie 
Lanzendorf. The Graf divided his attentions equally 
between the three ladies for some time, but on inquiring 
of a friend which would make the greatest sensation in 
Berlin, his marriage to the mother or to one of the 
daughters, and being told his marriage to the mother, 
at once proposed to the middle-aged Grafin, and was 
joyfully accepted. The reason for this inappropriate 
match probably lay deeper than the desire to astonish 
the people of Berlin, for Puckler, with all his surface 
romanticism, had a keen eye to the main chance. His 
Lucie had only a moderate dower, but the advantage of 
being son-in-law to the Chancellor of Prussia could 
hardly be overestimated. Again, the Graf seems to 
have imagined that in a marriage of convenience with a 
woman nine years older than himself, he would be able 
to preserve the liberty of his bachelor days, while pre- 
senting the appearance of domestic respectability. 

As soon as the trifling formality of a divorce from 
Count Pappenheim had been gone through, the marriage 
took place at Muskau, to the accompaniment of the 
most splendid festivities. As may be supposed, the 
early married life of the ill-assorted couple was a period 
284 



PRINCE PtTCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

of anything but unbroken calm. Scarcely had the Graf 
surrendered his liberty than he fell passionately in love 
with his wife's adopted daughter, Helmine, a beautiful 
girl of eighteen, the child, it was believed, of humble 
parents. Frederick William III. of Prussia was one of 
her admirers, and had offered to marry her morgan- 
atically, and create her Herzogin von Breslau. But 
Helmine gave her royal suitor no encouragement, and 
he soon consoled himself with the Princess Liegnitz. 
Lucie spared no pains to marry off the inconvenient 
beauty, but Plickler frustrated all her efforts, implored 
her not to separate him from Helmine, and suggested 
an arrangement based upon the domestic policy of 
Goethe's Walilverivandschcfften. But Lucie was unreason- 
able enough to object to a menage a trois, and at 
length succeeded in marrying Helmine to a Lieutenant 
von Blucher. 

In 1822 the Graf accompanied his father-in-law to 
the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, and shortly afterwards 
was raised to princely rank, in compensation for 
the losses he had sustained through the annexation of 
Silesia by Prussia. By this time the prince's financial 
affairs were in so desperate a condition, thanks to the 
follies of his youth and the building mania of his 
manhood, that a desperate remedy was required to put 
them straight again. Only one expedient presented 
itself, and this Lucie, with a woman's self-sacrifice, was 
the first to propose. During a short absence from 
Muskau she wrote to her husband to offer him his 
freedom, in order that he might be enabled to marry 
a rich heiress, whose fortune could be used to clear off 
the liabilities that pressed so heavily on the estate. 
The prince at first refused to take advantage of this 

285 



PRINCE PlJCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

generous offer. He had l)ecome accustomed to his 
elderly wife, who acted as his colleague and helper in 
all that concerned his idolised Muskau, and upon whose 
sympathy and advice he had learned to depend. But 
as time went on he grew accustomed to the idea of 
an amicable divorce, and at length persuaded himself 
that such a proceeding need make no real difference to 
Lucie's position ; in fact, that it would be an advantage 
to her as well as to himself. For years past he had 
regarded her rather in the light of a maternal friend 
than of a wife, and the close camaraderie that existed 
between them would remain unbroken by the advent 
of a young bride whom Lucie would love as her own 
child. A divorce, it must be remembered, was a 
common incident of everyday life in the Germany of 
that epoch. As we have seen, Plickler's father and 
mother had dissolved their marriage, and Lucie had 
been divorced from her first husband, while her father 
had been married three times, and had separated from 
each of his wives. 

The matter remained in abeyance for a year or two, 
and it was not until 1826, when the prince probably 
felt that he had no time to lose, that the long-talked- 
of divorce actually took place. This curious couple, 
who appeared to be more tenderly attached to each 
other now than they had ever been before, took a 
touching farewell in Berlin. The princess then re- 
turned to Muskau, where she remained during her 
ex-husband's absence as his agent and representative, 
while the prince set out for England, which country 
was supposed to offer the best hunting-ground for 
heiresses. Week by week during his tour, Puckler 
addressed to his faithful Lucie long, confidential letters, 
286 



PRINCE P0CKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

filled with observations of the manners and customs of 
the British barbarians, together with minute descrip- 
tions of his adventures in love and landscape-gardening. 

The prince, though at this time in his forty-first 
year, was still, to all appearance, in the prime of life, 
still an adept in feats of skill and strength, and not 
less romantic and susceptible than in the days of his 
youth. With his high rank, his vast though en- 
cumbered estates, his picturesque appearance, and his 
wide experience in affairs of the heart, he anticipated 
little difficulty in carrying off one of the most eligible 
of British heiresses ; but he quite forgot to include the 
hard-hearted, level-headed British parent in his reckon- 
ing. The prince's first letter to Lucie, who figures in 
the published version as Julie, is dated Dresden, Sep- 
tember 7, 1826, and begins in right Werterian strain : — 

' My dear Friend, — The love you showed me at our 
parting made me so happy and so miserable that I 
cannot yet recover from it. Your sad image is ever 
before me ; I still read deep sorrow in your looks and 
in your tears, and ray own heart tells me too well what 
yours suffered. May God grant us a meeting as joyful 
as our parting was sorrowful ! I can only repeat what 
I have so often told you, that if I felt myself without 
you, my dearest friend, in the world, I could enjoy none 
of its pleasures without an alloy of sadness ; that if you 
love me, you will above all things watch over your 
health, and amuse yourself as much as you can by 
varied occupation.' There are protestations of this 
kind in nearly every letter, for the prince's pen was 
always tipped with fine sentiment and vows of eternal 
devotion came more easily to him than the ordinary 
civilities of everyday life to the average man. 

287 



PRINCE PlTCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

A visit to Goethe at Weimar, on the traveller's 
leisurely journey towards England, furnished his note- 
book with some interesting specimens of the old 
poet's conversation. ' He received me,' writes the 
prince, ' in a dimly-lighted room, whose clair obscure 
was arranged with some coquetterie ; and truly the 
aspect of the beautiful old man, with his Jovelike 
countenance, was most stately. ... In the course of 
conversation we came to Walter Scott. Goethe was 
not very enthusiastic about the Great Unknown. He 
said he doubted not that he wrote his novels in the 
same sort of partnership as existed between the old 
painters and their pupils ; that he furnished the plot, 
the leading thoughts, the skeleton of the scenes, that 
he then let his pupils fill them up, and retouched them 
at the last. It seemed almost to be his opinion that 
it was not worth the while of a man of Scott's 
eminence to give himself up to such a number of minute 
and tedious details. "Had I," he said, "been able to 
lend myself to the idea of mere gain, I could formerly 
have sent such things anonymously into the world, with 
the aid of Lenz and others — nay, I could still, as 
would astonish people not a little, and make them 
puzzle their brains to find out the author ; but after 
all, they would be but manufactured wares. . . ." 

' He afterwards spoke of Lord Byron with great 
affection, almost as a father would of a son, which was 
extremely grateful to my enthusiastic feelings for this 
great poet. He contradicted the silly assertion that 
Maivfred was only an echo of his Faust. He extremely 
regretted that he had never become personally acquainted 
with Lord Byron, and severely and justly reproached 
the English nation for having judged their illustrious 
288 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

countryman so pettily, and understood him so ill."* The 
conversation next turned on politics, and Goethe reverted 
to his favourite theory that if every man laboured faith- 
fully, honestly, and lovingly in this sphere, were it great 
or small, universal well-being and happiness would not 
long be wanting, whatever the form of government. 
The prince urged in reply that a constitutional govern- 
ment was first necessary to call such a principle into 
life, and adduced the example of England in support 
of his argument. ' Goethe immediately replied that the 
choice of the example was not happy, for that in no 
country was selfishness more omnipotent ; that no people 
were perhaps essentially less humane in their political 
or their private relations ; that salvation came, not from 
without, by means of forms of government, but from 
within, by the wise moderation and humble activity of 
each man in his own circle ; and that this must ever be 
the chief source of human felicity, while it was the 
easiest and the simplest to attain.*' 

The prince seems always to have played the part of 
Jonah on board ship, and on the occasion of his journey 
to England, he had a terrible passage of forty hours, 
from Rotterdam to the London Docks. As soon as he 
could get his carriage, horses, and luggage clear of the 
customs, he hastened to the Clarendon Hotel, where he 
had stayed during his first visit to London. Unlike the 
American, N. P. Willis, he had come armed with many 
prejudices against England and the English, few of 
which he succeeded in losing during the two years of 
his sojourn among us. In his first letter from London, 
dated October 5, 1826, he Avrites : 'London is now so 
utterly dead to elegance and fashion that one hardly 
meets a single equipage, and nothing remains of the 
T 289 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

heau monde but a few ambassadors. The huge city is 
at the same time full of fog and dirt, and the macadam- 
ised streets are like well-worn roads. The old pave- 
ment has been torn up, and replaced by small pieces of 
granite, the interstices between which are filled up with 
gravel ; this renders the riding more easy, and diminishes 
the noise, but on the other hand changes the town into 
a sort of quagmire."" The prince comments favourably 
on the improvements that had recently been carried out 
by Nash the architect, more especially as regards Regent 
Street and Portland Place, and declares that the laying 
out of the Regent"'s Park is 'faultless,"" particularly in 
the disposition of the water. 

The comfort and luxury of English hotels, as well as 
of private houses, is a subject on which the traveller 
frequently enlarges, and in this first letter he assures his 
Lucie that she would be delighted with the extreme 
cleanliness of the interiors, the great convenience of the 
furniture, and the good manners of the serving- people, 
though he admits that, for all that pertains to luxury, 
the tourist pays about six times as much as in Germany. 
' The comfort of the inns,"* he continues, ' is unknown 
on the Continent ; on your washing-table you find, not 
one miserable water-bottle with a single earthenware 
jug and basin, and a long strip of towel, but positive 
tubs of porcelain in which you may plunge half your 
body ; taps which instantly supply you with streams of 
water at pleasure ; half-a-dozen wide towels, a large 
standing mirror, foot-baths and other conveniences of 
the toilet, all of equal elegance."" 

The prince took advantage of the dead season to 
explore the city and other unfashionable quarters of 
the town. He was delighted with the excellent side- 
290 



PRINCE PtrCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

pavements, the splendid shops, the brilliant gas-lamps, 
and above all (like Miss Edgeworth''s Rosamund) with 
' the great glass globes in the chemists'' windows, filled 
with liquid of a deep red, blue or green, the light of 
which is visible for miles (l)"* Visits to the Exchange, 
the Bank, and the Guildhall were followed by a call on 
Rothschild, ' the Grand Ally of the Grand Alliance,' at 
his house of business. ' On my presenting my card,"* 
says our hero, ' he remarked ironically that we were 
lucky people who could afford to travel about, and take 
our pleasure, while he, poor man, had such a heavy 
burden to bear. He then broke out into bitter com- 
plaints that every poor devil who came to England had 
something to ask of him. . . . After this the conversa- 
tion took a political turn, and we of course agreed that 
Europe could not subsist without him ; he modestly 
declined our compliments, and said, smiling, ' Oh no, 
you are only jesting ; I am but a servant, with whom 
people are pleased because he manages their affairs well, 
and to whom they allow some crumbs to fall as an 
acknowledgment.' 

On October 19 the prince went to Newmarket for 
the races. During his stay he was introduced to a rich 
merchant of the neighbourhood, who invited him to 
spend a couple of days at his country-house. He gives 
Lucie a minute account of the manners and customs of 
an English menage, but these are only interesting to 
the modern reader in so far as they have become 
obsolete. For example : ' When you enter the dining- 
room, you find the whole of the first course on the 
table, as in France. After the soup is removed, and 
the covers are taken off, every man helps the dish 
before him, and offers some to his neighbour ; if he 

291 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

wishes for anything else, he must ask across the table, 
or send a servant for it, a very troublesome custom. . . . 
It is not usual to take wine without drinking to another 
person. If the company is small, and a man has drunk 
with everybody, but happens to wish for more Avine, he 
must wait for the dessert, if he does not find in himself 
courage to brave custom. "" 

On his return to town the prince, who had been 
elected a member of the Travellers' Club, gives a long 
dissertation on English club life, not forgetting to dwell 
on the luxury of all the arrangements, the excellent 
service, and the methodical fashion in which the gaming- 
tables were conducted. ' In no other country," he 
declares, ' are what are here emphatically called " busi- 
ness habits " carried so extensively into social and 
domestic life ; the value of time, of order, of despatch, 
of routine, are nowhere so well understood. This is 
the great key to the most striking, national character- 
istics. The quantity of material objects produced and 
accomplished — the work done — in England exceeds all 
that man ever effected. The causes that have produced 
these results have as certainly given birth to the dulness, 
the contracted views, the inveterate prejudices, the un- 
bounded desire for, and deference to wealth which 
characterise the great mass of Englishmen.'' 

During this first winter in London the prince was a 
regular attendant at the theatres, and many were the 
dramatic criticisms that he sent to his ' friend ' at 
Muskau. He saw Liston in the hundred and second 
representation of Paul Pry, and at Drury Lane found, 
to his amazement that Braham, whom he remembered as 
an elderly man in 1814, was still first favourite. 'He 
is the genuine representative of the English style of 
292 



PtllNCE PtTCKLER-MtJSKAU IN ENGLANt) 

singing," writes our critic, ' and in popular songs is the 
adored idol of the public. One cannot deny him great 
power of voice and rapidity of execution, but a more 
abominable style it is difficult to conceive. . . . The 
most striking feature to a foreigner in English theatres 
is the natural coarseness and brutality of the audiences. 
The consequence is that the higher and more civilised 
classes go only to the Italian Opera, and very rarely 
visit their national theatre. English freedom has 
degenerated into the rudest licence, and it is not 
uncommon in the midst of the most affecting part of a 
tragedy, or the most charming cadenza of a singer, to 
hear some coarse expression shouted from the gallery in 
a stentor voice. This is followed, either by loud 
laughter and applause, or by the castigation and expul- 
sion of the offender.'' 

The poor prince saw Mozarfs Figaro announced for 
performance at Drury Lane, and looked forward to 
hearing once more the sweet harmonies of his Vaterland. 
' What, then, was my astonishment,"" he exclaims, in 
justifiable indignation, ' at the unheard-of treatment 
which the masterpiece of the immortal composer has 
received at English hands ! You will hardly believe me 
when I tell you that neither the count, the countess, 
nor Figaro sang ; these parts were given to mere actors, 
and their principal airs were sung by other singers. To 
add to this the gardener roared out some interpolated 
English popular songs, which suited Mozarfs music just 
as a pitch-plaster would suit the face of the Venus de"* 
Medici. The whole opera was, moreover, arranged by 
a certain Mr. Bishop ; that is, adapted to English 
ears by means of the most tasteless and shocking 
alterations. The English national music, the coarse, 

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PRINCE POCKLER-MlTSKAtr IN ENGLAND 

heavy melodies of which can never be mistaken for an 
instant, has to me, at least, something singularly 
offensive, an expression of brutal feeling both in pain 
and pleasure that smacks of " roast-beef, plum-pudding, 
and porter.'"'' 

Another entertainment attended by our hero about 
this time was the opening of Parliament by George iv., 
who had not performed this ceremony for several years. 
' The king,"" we are told, ' looked pale and bloated, and 
was obliged to sit on the throne for a considerable time 
before he could get breath enough to read his speech. 
During this time he turned friendly glances and con- 
descending bows towards some favoured ladies. On his 
right stood Lord Liverpool, with the sword of state and 
the speech in his hand, and the Duke of Wellington on 
his left. All three looked so miserable, so ashy-grey 
and worn out, that never did human greatness appear 
to me so little worth. ... In spite of his feebleness, 
George iv. read his hanale speech with great dignity 
and a fine voice, but Avith that royal nonchalance which 
does not concern itself with what his Majesty promises, 
or whether he is sometimes unable to decipher a word. 
It was very evident that the monarch was heartily glad 
when the corvee was over."* 

In one of his early letters the traveller gives his 
friend the following account of the manner in which he 
passes his day : ' I rise late, read three or four news- 
papers at breakfast, look in my visiting-book to see 
what visits I have to pay, and either drive to pay them 
in my cabriolet, or ride. In the course of these excur- 
sions, I sometimes catch the enjoyment of the pictur- 
esque ; the struggle of the blood-red sun with the 
winter fogs often produces wild and singular effects of 
294 



PRINCE PtrCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

light. After my visits I ride for several hours about 
the beautiful environs of London, return when it grows 
dark, dress for dinner, which is at seven or eight, and 
spend the evening either at the theatre or some small 
party. The ludicrous routs — at which one hardly finds 
standing-room on the staircase — have not yet com- 
menced. In England, however, except in a few diplo- 
matic houses, you can go nowhere in the evening without 
a special invitation.'' 

The prince seems to have been bored at most of the 
parties he attended ; partly, perhaps, out of pique at 
finding himself, so long accustomed to be the principal 
personage in his little kingdom of Muskau, eclipsed in 
influence and wealth by many a British commoner. 
Few persons that he met in the London of that day 
amused him more than the great Rothschild, with whom 
he dined more than once at the banker's suburban villa. 
Of one of these entertainments he writes : ' Mr. Roth- 
schild was in high good-humour, amusing and talkative. 
It was diverting to hear him explain to us the pictures 
round his room (all portraits of the sovereigns of Europe, 
presented through their ambassadors), and talk of the 
originals as his very good friends, and in a certain sense 

his equals. " Yes,"" said he, " the Prince of once 

pressed me for a loan, and in the same week on w^hich 
I received his autograph letter, his father wrote to me 
also from Rome, to beg me, for Heaven's sake, not to 
have any concern in it, for that I could not have to do 
with a more dishonest man than his son, . . .'" He con- 
cluded by modestly calling himself the dutiful and 
generously- paid agent and servant of these high 
potentates, all of whom he honoured equally, let the 
state of politics be what it might ; for, said he, 

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PRINCE PtrCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

laughing, " I never like to quarrel with my bread and 
butter." It shows great prudence in Mr. Rothschild to 
have accepted neither title nor order, and thus to have 
preserved a far more respectable independence. He 
doubtless owes much to the good advice of his extremely 
amiable and judicious wife, who excels him in tact and 
knowledge of the world, though not, perhaps, in acuteness 
and talents for business. '' 

Although the prince had not as yet entered the 
ranks of authors, he was always interested in meeting 
literary people, such as Mr. Hope, author of Anastasius, 
Mr. Morier of Hadji Baba fame, and Lady Charlotte 
Bury, who had exchanged the celebrity of a beauty for 
that of a fashionable novelist. ' I called on Lady 
Charlotte,"" he says, ' the morning after meeting her, and 
found everything in her house brown, in every possible 
shade ; furniture, curtains, carpets, her own and her 
children''s dresses, presented no other colour. The room 
was without looking-glasses or pictures, and its only 
ornaments were casts from the antique. . . . After I had 
been there some time, the celebrated publisher. Con- 
stable, entered. This man has made a fortune by 
Walter Scott's novels, though, as I was told, he refused 
his first and best, Waverley, and at last gave but a 
small sum for it. I hope the charming Lady Charlotte 
had better cause to be satisfied with him.' 

Towards the end of December, his Highnesses head- 
gardener, Rehde, a very important functionary at 
Muskau, arrived in London to be initiated into the 
mysteries of English landscape-gardening. Together 
the two enthusiasts, master and man, made a tour of 
some of the principal show-places of England, including 
Stanmore Priory, Woburn Abbey, Cashiobury, Blenheim, 
296 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

Stowe, Eaton, Warwick, and Kenilworth, besides many 
of lesser note. At the end of the excursion, which lasted 
three weeks, the prince declared that even he was 
beginning to feel satiated with the charms of English 
parks. On his return to London he was invited to 
spend a few days with Lord Darnley at Cobham, and 
writes thence some further impressions of English 
country-house life. He was a little perturbed at being 
publicly reminded by his elderly host that they had 
made each other's acquaintance thirty years before. 

' Now, as I was in frocks at the time he spoke of,** 
observes the prince, ' I was obliged to beg for a further 
explanation, though I cannot say I was much delighted 
at having my age so fully discussed before all the com- 
pany, for you know I claim to look not more than 
thirty. However, I could not but admire Lord 
Darnley 's memory. He recollected every circumstance 
of his visit to my parents with the Duke of Portland, 
and recalled to me many a little forgotten incident.' 

The vie de chateau the traveller considered the most 
agreeable side of English life, by reason of its freedom, 
and the absence of those wearisome ceremonies which in 
Germany oppressed both host and guests. The English 
custom of being always en evidence^ however, occasioned 
him considerable surprise. ' Strangers,"" he observes, 
' have generally only one room allotted to them, and 
Englishmen seldom go into this room except to sleep, 
and to dress twice a day, which, even Avithout company, 
is always de riguenr ; for all meals are usually taken in 
public, and any one who wants to write does it in the 
library. There, also, those who wish to converse, give 
each other rendezvous^ to avoid the rest of the society. 
Here you have an opportunity of gossiping for hours 

297 



PRINCE PtJCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

with the young ladies, who are always very literarily in- 
clined. Many a marriage is thus concocted or destroyed 
between the corpus juris on the one side, and Bouffler's 
works on the other, while foshionable novels, as a sort 
of intermediate link, lie on the tables in the middle. 

Early in February the prince paid a visit to Brighton, 
where he made the acquaintance of Count D'Orsay, and 
was entertained by Mrs. Fitzherbert. He gives a jaun- 
diced account of two entertainments, a public ball and 
a musical soiree, which he attended while at Brighton, 
declaring — probably with some truth — that the latter 
is one of the greatest trials to which a foreigner can 
be exposed in England. ' Every mother,' he explains, 
' who has grown-up daughters, for whom she has had to 
pay large sums to the music-master, chooses to enjoy 
the satisfaction of having the youthful talent admired. 
There is nothing, therefore, but quavering and strum- 
ming right and left, so that one is really overpowered 
and unhappy ; and even if an Englishwoman has a 
natural capacity for singing, she seldom acquires either 
style or science. The men are much more agreeable 
dilettanti, for they at least give one the diversion of a 
comical farce. That a man should advance to the piano 
with far greater confidence than a David, strike with his 
forefinger the note which he thinks his song should 
begin with, and then entonner like a thunder-clap 
(generally a tone or two lower than the pitch), and 
sing through a long aria without an accompaniment of 
any kind, except the most wonderful distortions of face, is 
a thing one must have seen to believe it possible, especi- 
ally in the presence of at least fifty people.' 

By the middle of April the season had begun in town, 
and the prince soon found himself up to the eyes in 
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PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

invitations for balls, dinners, breakfasts, and so'irien. 
We hear of him dining with the Duke of Clarence, to 
meet the Duchess of Kent and her daughter ; assisting at 
the Lord Mayor's banquet, which lasted six hours, and 
at which the chief magistrate made six-and-twenty 
speeches, long and short ; breakfasting with the Duke 
of Devonshire at Chiswick, being nearly suffocated at 
the routs of Lady Cowper and Lady Jersey, and attend- 
ing his first ball at Almack's, in which famous assem- 
blage his expectations were wofully disappointed. ' A 
large, bare room,' so runs his description, ' with a bad 
floor, and ropes round it, like the space in an Arab 
camp parted off for horses ; two or three badly-furnished 
rooms at the side, in which the most wretched refresh- 
ments are served, and a company into which, in spite 
of all the immense difficulty of getting tickets, a great 
many nobodies had wriggled ; in which the dress was a^ 
tasteless as the tournure was bad — this was all. In 
a word, a sort of inn-entertainment — the music and 
lighting the only good things. And yet Almack's is 
the culminating point of the English world of fashion.' 

Unfortunately for his readers, the prince was rather 
an observer than an auditor ; for he describes what he 
sees vividly enough, but seldom takes the trouble to set 
down the conversation that he hears. Perhaps he 
thought it hardly worth recording, for he complains 
that in England politics had become the main ingredient 
in social intercourse, that the lighter and more frivolous 
pleasures suffered by the change, and that the art 
of conversation would soon be entirely lost. ' In this 
country,'' he unkindly adds, ' I should think it [the 
art of conversation] never existed, unless, perhaps, 
in Charles ii.'s time. And, indeed, people here are too 

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PRINCE PtFCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

slavishly subject to established usages, too systematic in 
all their enjoyments, too incredibly kneaded up with 
prejudices ; in a word, too little vivacious to attain to 
that unfettered spring and freedom of spirit, which must 
ever be the sole basis of agreeable society. I must 
confess that I know none more monotonous, nor more 
persuaded of its own pre-eminence than the highest 
society of this country. A stony, marble-cold spirit of 
caste and fashion rules all classes, and makes the highest 
tedious, the lowest ridiculous.** 

In spite of his dislike to politics as a subject of con- 
versation, his Highness attended debates at the House 
of Lords and the House of Commons, and was so keenly 
interested in what he heard that he declared the hours 
passed like minutes. Canning had just been intrusted by 
George iv. with the task of forming a government, but 
had promptly been deserted by six members of the former 
Ministry, including Wellington, Lord Eldon, and Peel, 
who were now accused of having resigned in consequence 
of "a cabal or conspiracy against the constitutional pre- 
rogative of the king to change his ministers at his own 
pleasure. In the House of Commons the prince heard 
PeePs attack on Canning and the new government, 
which was parried by Brougham. ' In a magnificent 
speech, which flowed on like a clear stream, Brougham,"* 
we are told, ' tried to disarm his opponent ; now tortured 
him with sarcasms ; now wrought upon the sensibility, 
or convinced the reason, of his hearers. The orator 
closed with the solemn declaration that he was perfectly 
impartial ; that he could be impartial, because it was 
his fixed determination never, and on no terms, to accept 
a place in the administration of the kingdom.^ . . . 
^ In 1 83 1 Brougham accepted office as Lord Chancellor. 

300 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

Canning, the hero of the day, now rose. If his pre- 
decessor might be compared to a dexterous and elegant 
boxer, Canning presented the image of a finished antique 
gladiator. All was noble, simple, refined ; then suddenly 
his eloquence burst forth like lightning — grand and all- 
subduing. His speech was, from every point of view, 
the most complete, as well as the most irresistibly per- 
suasive — the crown and glory of the debate. "■ 

On the following day the prince heard some of the 
late ministers on their defence in the House of Lords. 
' Here,' he observes, ' I saw the great Wellington in 
terrible straits. He is no orator, and was obliged to 
enter upon his defence like an accused person. He was 
considerably agitated ; and this senate of his country, 
though composed of men whom individually, perhaps, 
he did not care for, appeared more imposing to him en 
masse than Napoleon and his hundred thousands. He 
stammered much, interrupted and involved himself, but 
at length he brought the matter tolerably to this con- 
clusion, that there was no " conspiracy." He occasion- 
ally said strong things — probably stronger than he 
meant, for he was evidently not master of his material. 
Among other things, the following words pleased me 
extremely : " I am a soldier and no orator. I am utterly 
deficient in the talents requisite to play a part in this 
great assembly. I must be more than insane if I ever 
entertained the thought, of which I am accused, of 
becoming Prime Minister."^ . . , When I question myself 
as to the total impression of this day, I must confess 
that it was at once elevating and melancholy — the former 
when I fancied myself an Englishman, the latter when 
I felt myself a German. This twofold senate of the 
^ In January 182S the duke became Prime Minister. 

301 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

people of England, in spite of all the defects and 
blemishes common to human institutions, is yet grand 
in the highest degree ; and in contemplating its power 
and operation thus near at hand, one begins to under- 
stand why it is that the English nation is, as yet, the 
first on the face of the earth,"* 

The traveller was by no means exclusively occupied in 
hearing and seeing new things. With that strain of 
practicality which contrasted so oddly with his senti- 
mental and romantic temperament, he kept firmly before 
his eyes the main object of his visit to England. He 
had determined at the outset not to sell himself and his 
title for less than £50,000, but he confesses that, as 
time passed on, his demands became much more modest. 
His matrimonial ventures were all faithfully detailed to 
the presumably sympathising Lucie, for whose sake, the 
prince persuaded himself, he was far more anxious for 
success than for his own. But he had not counted on 
the many obstacles with which he found himself con- 
fronted, chief among them being his relations with his 
former wife. It was known that the ex-princess was 
still living at Muskau with all the rights and privileges 
of a chatelaine^ while the prince never disguised his 
attachment to her, and openly kept her portrait on his 
table. English mothers who would have welcomed him 
as a son-in-law were led to believe that the divorce 
was only a blind, and that the prince's marriage would 
be actually, if not legally, a bigamous union. The 
satirical papers represented him as a fortune-hunter, a 
Bluebeard who had ill-treated his first wife, and declared 
that he had proposed for the hand of the dusky Empress 
of Hayti, then on a visit to Europe. 

Still our hero obstinately pursued his quest, laying 
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PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

siege to the heart of every presentable-looking heiress to 
whom he was introduced, and if attention to the art of 
the toilet could have gained him a rich bride, he would 
not long have been unsuccessful. In dress he took the 
genuine interest and delight of the dandy of the period, 
and marvellous are the descriptions of his costume that 
he sends to Lucie. For morning visits, of which he 
sometimes paid fifty in one day, he wore his hair dyed a 
beautiful black, a new hat, a green neckerchief with 
gaily coloured stripes, a yellow cashmere waistcoat with 
metal buttons, an olive-green frock-coat and iron-grey 
pantaloons. On other occasions he is attired in a 
dark-brown coat, with a velvet collar, a white necker- 
chief, in which a thin gold watch-chain is entwined, a 
waistcoat with a collar of cramoisie and gold stars, an 
under-waistcoat of white satin, embroidered with gold 
flowers, full black pantaloons, spun silk stockings, and 
short square shoes. Style such as this could only be 
maintained at a vast outlay, from the German point of 
view, the week"'s washing-bill alone amounting to an 
important sum. According to the prince's calculation, 
a London exquisite, during the season of 1827, required 
every week twenty shirts, twenty-four pocket-handker- 
chiefs, nine or ten pairs of summer trousers, thirty 
neckerchiefs, a dozen waistcoats and stockings a ducretion. 
* I see your housewifely ears aghast, my good Lucie,' he 
writes, ' but as a dandy cannot get on without dressing 
three or four times a day, the affair is quite simple.' 

However much the prince may have enjoyed the 
ceremony of the toilet, he strongly objected to the 
process of hair-dyeing, and his letters are full of com- 
plaints of his sufferings and humiliation while under- 
going the operation, which, he declares, is a form of 

303 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

slow poison, and also an unpleasant reminder that he 
is really old, but obliged to play the part of youth 
in order to attain an object that may bring him more 
misery than happiness. As soon as he is safely married 
to his heiress, he expresses his determination of looking 
his full age, so that people might say ' What a well- 
preserved old man ! ' instead of ' Voild, le ci-devant jeuiie 
Jiomme ! "" Still, with all this care and thought, heiresses 
remained coy, or more probably their parents were 
' difficult.'' The prince's highly-developed personal 
vanity was wounded by many a refusal, and so weary did 
he become of this woman-hunt, that in one letter to 
Lucie, dated March 5, 1827, he exclaims, 'Ah, my 
dearest, if you only had 150,000 thalers, I would 
marry you again to-morrow ! ' 



PART II 

The summer months were spent in visits to Windsor 
and other parks near London, and in a tour through 
Yorkshire. In October his Highness was back in town, 
and engaged in a new matrimonial venture. He writes 
to Lucie that ' the fortune in question is immense, and 
if I obtain it, I shall end gloriously.' In the correspon- 
dence published after the prince's death is the draft of 
a letter to Mr. Bonham of Titness Park, containing a 
formal proposal for the hand of his daughter, ' Miss 
Harriet,' and detailing (with considerable reservations) 
the position of his financial affairs. Muskau, he explains, 
is worth =£^1 4,000 a year, an income which in Germany 
is equivalent to three times as much in England. ' Every- 
thing belonging to me,' he continues, ' is in the best 
304 



PRINCE PiJCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

possible order ; a noble residence at Muskau, and two 
smaller chateaux, surrounded with large parks and gar- 
dens, in fact, all that make enjoy life {sic) in the country is 
amply provided for, and a numerous train of officious (sic) 
of my household are always ready to receive their young 
princess at her own seat, or if she should prefer town, the 
court of Prussia Avill offer her every satisfaction.' Owing 
to the fact that Muskau was mortgaged for ^50,000, he 
was forced, he confesses, to expect an adequate fortune 
with his wife, a circumstance to which, if he had been 
otherwise situated, he should have paid little attention. 
This missive was accompanied by a long letter, dated 
Nov. 1, 1827, to 'Miss Harriet,' in which the suitor 
explains the circumstances of his former marriage, and 
of his divorce, the knowledge of which has rendered her 
uneasy. ' It is rather singular,' he proceeds, ' that in 
the very first days after my arrival, you. Miss Harriet, 
were named to me, together with some other young 
ladies, as heiresses. Now I must confess, at the risk of 
the fact being doubted in our industrious times, that I 
myself had a prejudice against, and even some dread of 
heiresses. I may say that I proved in some way these 
feelings to exist by marrying a lady with a very small 
fortune, and afterwards in England by never courting 
any heiresses further as common civility required. My 
reasons for so doing are not without foundation. In 
the first instance, I am a little proud ; in the second, I 
don't want any more than I possess, though I should 
not reject it, finding it in my way, and besides all this, 
rich young maidens are not always very amiable.' The 
prince continues that he had gone, out of principle, into 
all kinds of society, and seen many charming and hand- 
some girls, but had not been able to discover his affinity, 
u 305 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

At last, after renouncing the idea of marriage, he heard 
again of Miss Harriet Bonham, not of her fortune this 
time, but of her many excellent qualities, and the fact 
that she had refused several splendid offers. His curio- 
sity was now at last aroused ; he sought an opportunity 
of being introduced to her, and — ' Dearest Miss Harriet, 
you know the rest. I thought — and I protest it by all 
that is sacred — I thought when I left you again, that 
here at last I had found united all and everything I 
could wish in a future companion through life. An 
exterior the most pleasing, a mind and person equally 
fit for the representation of a court and the delight of 
a cottage, and above all, that sensibility, that goodness 
of heart, and that perfect absence of conceitedness which 
I value more than every other accomplishment. ... I 
beheld you, besides all your more essential qualities, so 
quick as lively, so playful as whitty(*ic), and nothing really 
seemed more bewitching to me as when a hearty, joyful 
laugh changed your thoughtful, noble features to the 
cheerful appearance of a happy child ! And still through 
every change your and your friends'* conversation and 
behaviour always remained distinguished by that perfect 
breeding and fine tact which, indeed, is to private life 
what a clear sky is to a landscape. . . .'' 

There is a great deal more to the same effect, and it 
is sad to think that all this trouble, all this expenditure 
of ink and English grammar, was thrown away. Papa 
Bonham could not pay down the fortune demanded by 
the prince Avithout injuring the other members of his 
family ; ^ and although Miss Harriet deplores ' the cruel 
end of all our hopes,'' the negotiations fell through. 

^ Mr. Bonham's eldest daughter was the second wife of the first Lord 
Garvagh. 

306 



PKLNCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

The prince consoled himself for his disappointment 
with a fresh round of sight-seeing. He became deeply 
enamoured of a steam-engine, of which newly-invented 
animal he sends the following picturesque description to 
Lucie : ' We must now be living in the days of the 
Arahian Nights, for I have seen a creature to-day far 
surpassing all the fantastic beings of that time. Listen 
to the monster's characteristics. In the first place, its 
food is the cheapest possible, for it eats nothing but 
wood or coals, and when not actually at work, it requires 
none. It never sleeps, nor is weary ; it is subject to no 
diseases, if well organised at first ; and never refuses its 
work till worn out by great length of service. It is 
equally active in all climates, and undertakes all kinds 
of labour without a murmur. Here it is a miner, there 
a sailor, a cotton-spinner, a weaver, or a miller ; and 
though a small creature, it draws ninety tons of goods, 
or a whole regiment of soldiers, with a swiftness exceed- 
ing that of the fleetest mail-coaches. At the same time, 
it marks its own measured steps on a tablet fixed in 
front of it. It regulates, too, the degree of warmth 
necessary to its well-being ; it has a strange power of oil- 
ing its inmost joints when they are stiff, and of removing 
at pleasure all injurious air that might find the way into 
its system ; but should anything become deranged in it, 
it warns its master by the loud ringing of a bell. Lastly, 
it is so docile, in spite of its enormous strength (nearly 
equal to that of six hundred horses), that a child of four 
years old is able in a moment to arrest its mighty labours 
by the pressure of his little finger. Did ever a witch 
burnt for sorcery produce its equal ? ' 

A few weeks later we hear of one manifestation of the 
new power, which did not quite come up to the expecta- 

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PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

tions of its admirers. On January 16, 1828, the prince 
writes : ' The new steam-carriage is completed, and goes 
five miles in half an hour on trial in the Regent's Park. 
But there was something to repair every moment. I Avas 
one of the first of the curious who tried it ; but found the 
smell of oiled iron, which makes steamboats so unplea- 
sant, far more insufferable here. Stranger still is another 
vehicle to which I yesterday intrusted my person. It is 
nothing less than a carriage drawn by a paper kite, very 
like those the children fly. This is the invention of a 
schoolmaster, who is so skilful in the guidance of his 
vehicle, that he can get on very fairly with half a wind, 
but with a completely fair one, and good roads, he goes 
a mile in three-quarters of a minute. The inventor 
proposes to traverse the African deserts in this manner, 
and has contrived a place behind, in which a pony stands 
like a footman, and in case of a calm, can he harnessed 
to the carriage.'' 

In the early part of 1828 Henriette Sontag arrived in 
London, and the prince at once fell a victim to her 
charms. The fascinating singer, then barely three-and- 
twenty, was already the idol of the public, at the very 
summit of her renown. Amazing prices were paid for 
seats when she was announced to appear. Among his 
Highness''s papers was found a ticket for a box at the 
opera on ' Madame Sontag's night,'' on which he notes 
that he had sold a diamond clasp to pay the eighty guineas 
demanded for the bit of cardboard. He was in love 
once again with all the ardour of youth, and for the 
moment all thoughts of a marriage of convenience were 
dismissed from his mind. He was now eager for a love- 
match with the fair Henriette, whose attractions had 
rendered him temporarily forgetful of those of Muskau. 
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PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

But Mademoiselle Sontag, though carried away by the 
passionate wooing of the prince, actually remembered 
that she had other ties, probably her engagement to 
Rossi, to which it was her duty to remain true. She 
told her lover that he must learn to forget her, and that 
when they parted at the conclusion of the London 
season, they must never meet again. The prince was 
heart-broken at the necessity for separation, and we are 
assured that he never forgot Henriette Sontag (though 
she had many successors in his affections), and that after 
his return to Germany he placed a gilded bust of the 
singer in his park, in order that he might have her 
image ever before his eyes. 

In the hope of distracting his thoughts from his dis- 
appointment, Prince Plickler decided to make a lengthened 
tour through Wales and Ireland, and with this object in 
view he set out in July 1828. Before his departure, 
however, he had an interesting rencontre at a dinner- 
party given by the Duchess of St. Albans — the ci-devant 
Harriet Melton. ' I arrived late,' says the prince, in his 
account of the incident, ' and was placed between my 
hostess and a tall, very simple, but benevolent-looking 
man of middle age, who spoke broad Scotch — a dialect 
anything but agreeable ; and would probably have 
struck me by nothing else, if I had not discovered that 

I was sitting next to , the Great Unknown ! It 

was not long ere many a sally of dry, poignant wit fell 
from his lips, and many an anecdote told in the most 
unpretending manner. His eye, too, glanced whenever 
he was animated, with such a clear, good-natured lustre, 
and such an expression of true-hearted kindness, that it 
was impossible not to conceive a sort of affection for 
him. Towards the end of the dinner he and Sir Francis 

309 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

Burdett told ghost-stories, half terrible, half humorous, 
one ag-ainst the other, ... A little concert concluded 
the evening, in which the very pretty daughter of the great 
bard — a healthy-looking Highland beauty — took part, 
and Miss Stephens sang nothing but Scottish ballads.' 

Before entering upon a new field of observation, the 
prince summed up his general impressions of London 
society with a candour that cannot have been very 
agreeable to his English readers. The goddess of 
Fashion, he observes, reigns in England alone with a 
despotic and inexorable sway ; while the spirit of caste 
here receives a power, consistency, and completeness of 
development unexampled in any other country. ' Every 
class of society in England, as well as every field, is 
separated from every other by a hedge of thorns. Each 
has its own manners and turns of expression, and, above 
all, a supreme and absolute contempt for all below it, 
. . . Now although the aristocracy does not stand as 
such upon the pinnacle of this strange social edifice, it 
yet exercises great influence over it. It is, indeed, 
difficult to become fashionable without being of good 
descent ; but it by no means follows that a man is so in 
virtue of being well-born — still less of being rich. 
Ludicrous as it may sound, it is a fact that while the 
present king is a very fashionable man, his father was 
not so in the smallest degree, and that none of his 
brothers have any pretensions to fashion ; which un- 
questionably is highly to their honour.' The truth of 
this observation is borne out by the story of Beau 
Brummell, who, when offended by some action of the 
Regenfs, exclaimed, ' If this sort of thing goes on, I 
shall cut Wales, and bring old George into fashion ! ' 

' A London exclusive of the present day," continues 
310 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

our censor, ' is nothing more than a bad, flat, dull 
imitation of a French rou4 of the Regency. Both have 
in common selfishness, levity, boundless vanity, and an 
utter want of heart. But what a contrast if we look 
further ! In France the absence of all morality and 
honesty was in some degree atoned for by the most 
refined courtesy, the poverty of soul by agreeableness 
and wit. What of all this has the English dandy to 
offer ? His highest triumph is to appear with the most 
wooden manners, as little polished as will suffice to 
avoid castigation ; nay, to contrive even his civilities so 
that they are as near as may be to affronts — this is the 
style of deportment that confers on him the greatest 
celebrity. Instead of a noble, high-bred ease, to have 
the courage to offend against every restraint of decorum ; 
to invert the relation in which his sex stands to women, 
so that they appear the attacking, and he the passive or 
defensive party ; to cut his best friends if they cease to 
have the strength and authority of fashion ; to delight 
in the ineffably fade jargon and affectations of his set, 
and always to know what is " the thing " — these are 
the accomplishments that distinguish a young " lion " of 
fashion. Whoever reads the best of the recent English 
novels — those by the author of Pelham — may be able to 
abstract from them a tolerably just idea of English 
fashionable society, provided he does not forget to 
deduct qualities which the national self-love has errone- 
ously claimed — namely, grace for its routs^ seductive 
manners and witty conversation for its dandies.' 

The foregoing is a summary of the prince's lengthy 
indictment against London society. ' I saw in the 
fashionable world,' he observes in conclusion, ' only too 
frequently, and with few exceptions, a profound vulgarity 

311 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

of thought ; an immorality little veiled or adorned ; the 
most undisguised arrogance ; and the coarsest neglect of 
all kindly feelings and attentions haughtily assumed for 
the sake of shining in a false and despicable refinement ; 
even more inane and intolerable to a healthy mind than 
the awkward stiffness of the declared Nobodies. It has 
been said that vice and poverty form the most revolting 
combination ; since I have been in England, vice and 
boorish rudeness seem to me to form a still more 
disgusting union/ 

The prince''s adventures in Wales and Ireland, with 
the recital of which he has filled up the best part of 
two volumes, must here be dismissed in as many para- 
graphs. On his tour through Wales, he left his card 
on the Ladies of Llangollen, who promptly invited him 
to lunch. Fortunately, he had previously been warned 
of his hostesses'* peculiarities of dress and appearance. 
' Imagine,' he writes, ' two ladies, the elder of whom. 
Lady Eleanor Butler, a short, robust woman, begins to 
feel her years a little, being nearly eighty-three ; the 
other, a tall and imposing person, esteems herself still 
youthful, being only seventy-four. Both wore their 
still abundant hair combed straight back and powdered, 
a round man''s hat, a man''s cravat and waistcoat, but 
in the place of " inexpressibles," a short petticoat and 
boots : the whole covered by a coat of blue cloth, of 
quite a peculiar cut. Over this Lady Eleanor wore, 
first the grand cordon of the order of St. Louis across 
her shoulders ; secondly, the same order round her 
neck ; thirdly, the small cross of the same in her button- 
hole ; and, pou7' comble de gloire, a golden lily of nearly 
the natural size as a star. So far the effect was some- 
what ludicrous. But now you must imagine both ladies 
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PRINCE PiJCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

with that agreeable aisance, that air of the world of 
the ancien regime, courteous, entertaining, without the 
slightest affectation, speaking French as well as any 
Englishwoman of my acquaintance ; and, above all, with 
that essentially polite, unconstrained, simply cheerful 
manner of the good society of that day, which in our 
hard-working, business age appears to be going to utter 
decay."* 

Thanks to his letters of introduction and the friend- 
ships that he struck up on the road, the prince was able 
occasionally to step out of the beaten tourist tracks, 
and to see something of the more intimate side of Irish 
social life. He has given a lively and picturesque 
account of his experiences, which included an introduc- 
tion to Lady Morgan,^ and to her charming nieces, 
the Miss Clarkes (who made a profound impression on 
his susceptible heart), a sentimental journey through 
Wicklow, a glance at the humours of Donnybrook Fair, 
a visit to O'Connell at Derrinane Abbey, a peep into 
the wilds of Connaught, an Emancipation dinner at 
Cashel, where he made his debut as an English orator, 
and an expedition to the lakes of Killarney. All this, 
which was probably novel and interesting to the German 
public, contains little that is not familiar to the modern 
English reader. The sketch of O'Connell is sufficiently 
vivid to bear quotation. 

' Daniel CConnell,' observes the prince, after his 
visit to Derrinane, ' is no common man — though the 
man of the commonalty. His power is so great that 
at this moment it only depends on him to raise the 
standard of rebellion from one end of the island to the 
other. He is, however, too sharp-sighted, and much 
^ See page 142. 

313 



PRINCE PtrCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

too sure of attaining his ends by safer means, to wish 
to bring on any such violent crisis. He has certainly 
shown great dexterity in availing himself of the temper 
of the country at this moment, legally, openly, and in 
the face of Government, to acquire a power scarcely 
inferior to that of the sovereign ; indeed, though with- 
out arms or armies, in some instances far surpassing it. 
For how would it have been possible for his Majesty 
George iv. to withhold 40,000 of his faithful Irish- 
men for three days from whisky drinking ? which 
O'Connell actually accomplished in the memorable Clare 
election. The enthusiasm of the people rose to such 
a height that they themselves decreed and inflicted a 
punishment for drunkenness. The delinquent was 
thrown into the river, and held there for two hours, 
during which time he was made to undergo frequent 
submersions. . . . On the whole, O'Connell exceeded 
my expectations. His exterior is attractive, and the 
expression of intelligent good-humour, united with 
determination and prudence, which marks his counten- 
ance, is extremely winning. He has perhaps more of 
persuasiveness than of large and lofty eloquence ; and 
one frequently perceives too much design and manner 
in his words. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to 
follow his powerful arguments with interest, to view the 
martial dignity of his carriage without pleasure, or to 
refrain from laughing at his wit. . . . He has received 
from Nature an invaluable gift for a party-leader, a 
magnificent voice, united to good lungs and a strong 
constitution. His understanding is sharp and quick, 
and his acquirements out of his profession not incon- 
siderable. With all this his manners are, as I have 
said, winning and popular, though somewhat of the 
314 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

actor is noticeable in them ; they do not conceal his 
very high opinion of himself, and are occasionally 
tinged by what an Englishman would call vulgarity. 
But where is there a picture without shade ? '' 

The prince''s matrimonial projects had been pursued 
only in half-hearted fashion during this year, and on 
his return to England in December, he seems to have 
thrown up the game in despair. On January 2, 
1829, he turned his back on our perfidious shores, and 
made a short tour in France before proceeding to 
Muskau, In one of his letters to Lucie he admits that 
on his return journey he had plenty of material for 
reflection. Two precious years had been wasted, absence 
from his dearest friend had been endured, a large sum 
of money had been spent in keeping up a dashing 
appearance — and all in vain. He consoles himself with 
the amazing reflection that Parry had failed in three 
attempts to reach the North Pole, and Bonaparte, 
after heaping victory on victory for twenty years, had 
perished miserably in St. Helena ! 

But if the prince had not accomplished his design 
of carrying off* a British heiress, his sojourn in England 
brought him a prize of a different kind — namely, the 
laurel crown of fame. His Br'iefe eines Verstorbenen, 
the first volumes of which were published anonymously 
in 1830, was greeted with an almost unanimous 
outburst of admiration and applause. The critics 
vied with each other in praising a work in which, 
according to their verdict, the grace and piquancy of 
France were combined with the analytical methods and 
the profound philosophy of Germany. In England, as 
was only to be expected, the chorus of applause was not 
unmixed with hisses and catcalls. The author had, 

315 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

however, been exceptionally fortunate in his translator, 
Sarah Austin, whose version of the Letters, entitled 
The Tour of a German Prince, was described by the 
Westminster Reviexo as ' the best modern translation of 
a prose work that has ever appeared, and perhaps our 
only translation from the German. As an original 
work, the ease and facility of the style would be admired; 
as a translation, it is unrivalled."' Croker reviewed the 
book in the Quarterly in his accustomed strain of 
playful brutality, rejoiced savagely over the numerous 
blunders,^ and credited the author with almost as many 
blasphemies as Lady Morgan herself. The Edinhirgh, 
in a more impartial notice, observed that a great part 
of the work had no other merit than that of being an 
act of individual treachery against the hospitalities of 
private life, and commented on the fact that while the 
masterpieces of Goethe and Schiller were still untrans- 
lated, the Tour of Prince Pilckler-Muskait had been 
bought up in a month. 

The prince was far too vain of his unexpected literary 
success to preserve his anonymity, and the ink-craving 
having laid hold upon him, he lost no time in setting 
to w^ork upon another book. The semblance of a 
separation between himself and Lucie had now been 
thrown aside. During the summer months they lived 
at Muskau, where they laboured together over plans 
for the embellishment of the gardens, while in the 
winter they kept up a splendid establishment in Berlin. 
The sight of a divorced couple living together seems to 
have shocked the Berliners far more than that of a 
married couple living apart, but to Plickler, as a 

1 The most amusing of these is the derivation of the Prince of Wales' 
motto ' Ich dien ' from two Welsh words, ' Eich deyn,' said to signify 
' This is your man ! ' 

316 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

chartered ' original,'' much was forgiven. At this time 
he went a good deal into literary society, and became 
intimate with several women-writers, among them the 
Grafin Hahn-Hahn, Rahel, and that amazing lady, 
Bettine von Arnim. With the last-named he struck 
up an intellectual friendship which roused the jealousy 
of Lucie, and was finally wrecked by Bettine''s attempts 
to obtain a spiritual empire over the lord of Muskau. 

In 1832 the prince's debts amounted to 500,000 
thalers, and he was obliged once again to face the fact 
that he could only save himself from ruin by a wealthy 
marriage, or by the sale of his estate. In a long letter 
he laid the state of the case before his faithful com- 
panion, pointing out that even at forty-seven, he, with his 
title and his youthful appearance, might hope to secure 
a bride worth 300,000 thalers, but that as long as his 
ex-wife remained at Muskau he was hardly likely to be 
successful in his matrimonial speculations. Lucie again 
consented to sacrifice herself in the good cause ; but the 
prince, a man of innumerable bonnes fortunes according 
to his own account, was curiously unfortunate as a 
would-be Benedick. The German heiresses were no more 
propitious to his suit than the English ones, had been ; 
and though, as he plaintively observes, he would have 
liked nothing better than to be a Turkish pasha with 
a hundred and fifty sultanas, he was unable to obtain a 
single Christian wife. 

In 1834 the prince published two books, Tuttl 
Frutti, a collection of stories and sketches, and Observa- 
tions on Landscape-Gardemng. Tutti Friitti was by no 
means so popular as the Briefe ernes Verstorbenen, but 
the Observations took rank as a standard work. The 
project of a journey to America having been abandoned, 

317 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

the prince now determined to spend the winter in 
Algiers, leaving Lucie in charge at Muskau. This 
modest programme enlarged itself into a tour in the 
East, which lasted for more than five years. The 
traveller's adventures during this period have been 
described in his Semilasso in Africa^ Aits Mehemefs 
Reich, Die Riickkehr, and other works, which added to 
their author's fame, and nearly sufficed to pay his 
expenses. We hear of him breaking hearts at Tunis 
and Athens, shooting big game in the Soudan, astonish- 
ing the Arabs by his horsemanship, and meddling in 
Egyptian politics. It was not until 1838 that, moved 
by Lucie's complaints of her loneliness, he reluctantly 
abandoned his plan of settling in the East, and turned 
his face towards Europe. On the homeward journey he 
made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and turned out of his 
course for the visit to Lady Hester Stanhope that has 
already been described.^ 

His Highness arrived at Vienna in the autumn of 1839, 
bringing in his suite an Abyssinian slave-girl, Machbuba, 
whom he had bought a couple of years before, and who 
had developed such wonderful qualities of head and 
heart, that he could not bring himself to part from 
her. But Lucie obstinately refused to receive Machbuba 
at Muskau, and declared that the prince's reputation 
would be destroyed for ever, if he brought a favourite 
slave under the same roof as his ' wife,' and thus sinned 
against the laws of outward seemliness. So Machbuba 
and the master who, like another Pygmalion, seems to 
have endowed this dusky Galatea with a mind and soul, 
remained at Vienna, where the Abyssinian, clad in a 
picturesque Mameluke's costume, accompanied the prince 

^ See page 269. 
318 



PRINCE PtrCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

to all the public spectacles, and became a nine days'" 
wonder to the novelty-loving Viennese. But the severity 
of a European winter proved fatal to poor Machbuba, 
consumption laid its grip upon her, and it was as a 
dying girl that at last she was taken to the Baths 
of Muskau. Lucie received this once-dreaded rival 
kindly, but at once carried off' the prince for a visit to 
Berlin, and in the absence of the master whom she 
worshipped with a spaniel-like devotion, Machbuba 
breathed her last. The slave-girl was laid to rest amid 
all the pomp and ceremony of a state funeral, the 
principal inhabitants of Muskau and the neighbourhood 
followed her to her grave, and on the Sunday following 
her death the chaplain delivered a eulogy on Machbuba's 
virtues, and the fatherly benevolence of her master. 

The prince was temporarily broken-hearted at the 
death of his favourite, but his mercurial spirits soon 
reasserted themselves, and a round of visits to the various 
German courts restored him to his accustomed self- 
complacency. The idea of selling Muskau, and thus 
ridding himself of the burden of his debts, once more 
occupied his mind. A handsome offer for the estate 
had been refused a few years before, in compliance 
with the wishes of Lucie, who loved Muskau even better 
than its master, and had appealed to the king to pre- 
vent the sale. But in 1845 came another offer from 
Count Hatzfeld of 1,700,000 thalers, which, in spite of 
Lucie''s tears and entreaties, the prince decided to accept. 
Although it cost him a sharp pang to give up to another 
the spot of earth on which he had lavished so much 
time, so much labour, and so much money, he fully 
appreciated the advantage of an unembarrassed income 
and complete freedom of movement. 

319 



PRINCE PtlCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

For a year or two after the sale, he led a wandering 
life, with Berlin or Weimar for his headquarters. In 
1846, shortly before his sixtieth birthday, he met, so he 
confided to the long-suffering Lucie, the only woman 
he had ever loved, or at least the only woman he had 
ever desired to marry. Unfortunately, the lady, who 
was young, beautiful, clever, of high rank, large fortune, 
and angelic disposition, had been married for some years 
to a husband who is described as ugly, ill-tempered, 
jealous, and incredibly selfish. The prince's letters at 
this period are filled with raptures over the virtues of 
his new i7iamorata, and lamentations that he had met 
her too late. For though his passion was returned the 
lady was a strict Catholic, for Avhom a divorce was out 
of the (juestion, and for once this hardened Lothario 
shrank from an elopement, with the resultant stain upon 
the reputation of the woman he loved. In 1846 he 
parted from his affinity, who survived the separation 
little more than a year, and retired with a heavy heart 
to his paternal castle of Branitz, near Kottbus, where he 
occupied himself in planting a park and laying out 
gardens. Branitz was only about a tenth part the size 
of Muskau, and stood in the midst of a sandy waste, 
but at more than sixty years of age the prince set him- 
self, with all the ardour of youth, to conjure a paradise 
out of the wilderness. Forest trees were transplanted, 
lakes and canals dug, hills appeared out of the level 
fields, and, in short, this ' earth-tamer,"* as Rahel called 
him, created not only a park, but a complete landscape. 

The remainder of our hero"'s eventful career must be 

briefly summarised. In 1851 he made a flight to 

England to see the Great Exhibition. Here he renewed 

his acquaintance with many old friends, among them 

320 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

the Duchess of Somerset, who told him that she had 
known his father well twenty-five years before. The prince, 
who has been described as a male Ninon de L'Enclos, 
was naturally delighted at being mistaken for his own 
son. In 1852 the work at Branitz was so far advanced 
that its lord invited Lucie to come and take up her 
abode at the Schloss. But the poor lady's troubled life 
was nearing its close. She had a paralytic stroke in the 
autumn of this year, and remained an invalid until her 
death, which took place at Branitz in May, 1854. 

In the loneliness that followed, the prince amused 
himself by keeping up a lively correspondence with his 
feminine acquaintance, for whom, even at seventy, he 
had not lost his fascinations. His celebrity as an author 
and a traveller brought him many anonymous correspond- 
ents, and he never wearied of reading and answering 
the sentimental effusions of his unknown admirers. In 
1863 he paid a visit incognito to Muskau, the first since 
he had left it eighteen years before, though Branitz was 
but a few leagues away. He was recognised at once, 
and great was the joy in the little town over the return 
of its old ruler, who was honoured with illuminations, 
the discharge of cannon, and torchlight processions. 
The estate had passed into the hands of Prince Frederick 
of the Netherlands, who had carried out all its former 
master's plans, and added many improvements of his 
own. Plickler generously admired the splendour that 
he had had so large a share in creating, and then went 
contentedly back to his Iclehw Branitz, his only regret 
being that he could not live to see it, like Muskau, in 
the fulness of its matured beauty. In 1866, when war 
broke out between Prussia and Austria, this grand old 
man of eighty-one volunteered for active service, and 
X 321 



PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND 

begged to be attached to the headquarters'" staff. His 
request was granted, and he went gallantly through the 
brief campaign, but was bitterly disappointed because 
he was not able to be present at the battle of Konig- 
gratz, owing to the indisposition of the king, upon 
whom he was in attendance. 

In 1870, when France declared war against Prussia, 
he again volunteered, and was deeply mortified when 
the king declined his services on account of his advanced 
age. For the first time he seems to have realised that 
he was old, and it is probable that the disappointment 
preyed upon his spirits, for his strength rapidly declined, 
his memory failed, and on February 4, 1871, after a brief 
illness, he sank peacefully to rest. He was buried in a 
tomb that he had built for himself many years before, a 
pyramid sixty feet high, which stood upon an acre of 
ground in the centre of an artificial lake. The two 
inscriptions that the prince chose for his sepulchre 
illustrate, appropriately enough, the sharply contrasting 
qualities of his strange individuality — his romantic 
sentimentality, and his callous cynicism. The first 
inscription was a line from the Koran : 

'Graves are the mountain summits of a far-off, fairer woi-ld.' 

The second, chosen presumably for the sake of the 
paradox, was the French apothegm : 

'Aliens 

Chez 

Pluton plutot plus tard.' 



322 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 




^'Vi^iJifito.-if 






WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

PART I 

The names of William and Mary Howitt are inex- 
tricably associated with the England of the early nine- 
teenth century, with the re-discovery of the beauty and 
interest of their native land, with the renaissance of the 
national passion for country pleasures and country pur- 
suits, and with the slow, painful struggle for a wider 
freedom, a truer humanity, a fuller, more gracious life. 
The Howitts had no genius, nor were they pioneers, 
but, where the unfamiliar was concerned, they were 
open-minded and receptive to a degree that is unfor- 
tunately rare in persons of their perfect uprightness and 
strong natural piety. If they flashed no new radiance 
upon the world, they were always among the first to 
kindle their little torches at the new lamps ; and they 
did good service in handing back the light to those 
who, but for them, would have had sat in the shadow, 
and flung stones at the incomprehensible illuminations. 

Of the two minds, Mary's was the finer and the more 
original. It was one of those everyday miracles — the 
miracles that do happen — that in spite of the severity, 
the narrowness, the repression of her early training, she 
should have forced her way through the shell of rigid 
sectarianism, repudiated her heritage of drab denials, 
and opened both heart and mind to the new poetry, the 

325 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

new art, and the new knowledge. In her husband she 
found a kindred spirit, and during the more than fifty 
years of their pilgrimage together their eyes were ever 
turned towards the same goal. Though not equally 
gifted, they were equally disinterested, equally en- 
lightened, and equally anxious for the advancement 
of humanity. They took themselves and their vocation 
seriously, and produced an immense quantity of careful, 
conscientious work, the work of honest craftsmen rather 
than artists, with the quality of a finished piece of 
cabinet-making, or a strip of fine embroidery. 

Mary Howitt was the daughter of Samuel Botham, 
a land-surveyor at Uttoxeter. His father, the descend- 
ant of a long line of Staffordshire yeomen, Quakers by 
persuasion, loved a roaming life, and having married a 
maltster's widow with a talent for business management, 
was left free to indulge his own propensities. He 
seems to have had a talent for medical science of an 
empirical kind, for he dabbled in magnetism and 
electricity, and wandered about the country collecting 
herbs for headache - snuffs, and healing ointments. 
Samuel, as soon as he had served his apprenticeship, 
found plenty of employment in the neighbourhood, 
the country gentlemen, who had taken alarm at 
the revolutionary ideas newly introduced from France, 
being anxious to have their acres measured, and their 
boundaries accurately defined. While at work upon 
Lord Talbofs Welsh estates in 1795, he became 
attracted by a ' convinced ' Friend, named Ann Wood. 
The interesting discovery that both had a passion for 
nuts, together with the gentle match-making of a 
Quaker patriarch, led to an engagement, and the couple 
were married in December, 1796. 
326 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

Ann Wood was the granddaughter of William Wood, 
whose contract for supplying Ireland with copper coin 
(obtained by bribing the Duchess of Kendal) was turned 
into a national grievance by Swift, and led to the publi- 
cation of the Drapier Letters. Although Wood's half- 
pence were admitted to be excellent coin, and Ireland 
was short of copper, the feeling against their circulation 
was so intense, that Ministers were obliged to withdraw 
the patent. Wood being compensated for his losses with 
a grant of £3000 a year for a term of years, and 
' places ' for some of his fifteen children. Ann's father, 
Charles, when very young, was appointed assay-master 
to Jamaica. After his return to England in middle 
life he married a lively widow, went into business as 
an iron-master near Merthyr Tydvil, and distinguished 
himself by introducing platinum into Europe, having 
first met with the semi-metal in Jamaica, whither it had 
been brought from Carthagena in New Spain. After 
his death, Ann, the only serious member of a ' worldly ' 
family, found it impossible to remain in the frivolous 
atmosphere of her home, and determined, in modern 
fashion, to ' live her own life.' After spending some 
years as governess or companion in various families, she 
became converted to Quaker doctrines, and was received 
into the Society of Friends. 

Samuel Botham took his bride to live in the paternal 
home at Uttoxeter, where the preparation of the old 
quack doctor's herbal medicines caused her a great deal 
of discomfort. In the course of the next three years 
two daughters were born to the couple; Anna in 1797, 
and Mary on March 12, 1799. At the time of Mary's 
birth her parents were passing through a period of 
pecuniary distress, owing to a disastrous speculation ; but 

327 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

with the opening of the new century a piece of great 
good fortune befell Samuel Botham. He was one of the 
two surveyors chosen to enclose and divide the Chase of 
Needwood in the county of Stafford. In the early years 
of the nineteenth century there was, unfortunately for 
England, a mania for enclosing commons, and felling 
ancient forests. Needwood, Avhich extended for many 
miles, contained great numbers of magnificent old oaks, 
limes, and hollies, and no less than twenty thousand 
head of deer. In after years, Mary Howitt often re- 
gretted that her family should have had a hand in the 
destruction of so vast an extent of solitude and beauty, 
in a country that was already thickly populated and 
trimly cultivated. Still, for the nine years that the 
work of ' disafforesting ' lasted, the two little girls got 
a great deal of enjoyment out of the ruined Chase, 
spending long summer days in its grassy glades, while 
their father parcelled out the land and marked trees for 
the axe. 

In he.v Autobiography^ Mary declares that it is impos- 
sible for her to give an adequate idea of the stillness 
and isolation of her childish life. So intense was the 
silence of the Quaker household, that, at four years old, 
Anna had to be sent to a dame's-school in order that 
she might learn to talk ; while even after both children 
had attained the use of speech, their ignorance of the 
right names for the most ordinary feelings and actions 
obliged them to coin words of their own. ' My child- 
hood was happy in many respects,'' she writes. ' It was 
so, as far as physical health, the enjoyment of a beautiful 
country, and the companionship of a dearly loved sister 

^ Edited by her daughter Margaret, and published by Messrs. Isbister 
in 1889. 

328 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

could make it — but oh, there was such a cloud over all 
from the extreme severity of a so-called religious educa- 
tion, it almost made cowards and hypocrites of us, and 
made us feel that, if this were religion, it was a thing 
to be feared and hated. '' The family reading consisted 
chiefly of the writings of Madame Guyon, Thomas a 
Kempis, and St. Francis de Sales, while for light litera- 
ture there were Telemachus, Fox's Book of Martyrs^ 
and a work on the Persecution of the Friends. But it 
is impossible for even the most pious of Quakers to 
guard against all the stratagems by which the spirit of 
evil — or human nature — contrives to gain an entrance 
into a godly household. In the case of the Botham 
children an early knowledge of good and evil was learnt 
from an apparently respectable nurse, who made her 
little charges acquainted with most of the scandals of 
the neighbourhood, accustomed their infant ears to 
oaths, and — most terrible of all — taught them to play 
whist, she herself taking dummy, and transforming the 
nursery tea-tray into a card-table. In that silent 
household it was easy to keep a secret, and though the 
little girls often trembled at their nurse"'s language, they 
never betrayed her confidence. 

In 1806 another daughter, Emma, was born to the 
Bothams, and in 1808 a son, Charles. In the midst of 
their joy and amazement at the news that they had 
a brother, the little girls asked each other anxiously : 
* Will our parents like it .'' ' Only a short time before 
a stranger had inquired if they had any brothers, and 
they had replied in all seriousness : ' Oh no, our parents 
do not approve of boys.' Now, much to their relief, 
they found that their father and mother highly approved 
of their own boy, who became the spoilt darling of the 

329 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

austere household. A new nurse was engaged for the 
son and heir, a lady of many love-affairs, who made 
Mary her confidante, and induced the child, then nine 
years old, to write an imaginary love-letter. The un- 
lucky letter was laid between the pages of the worthy 
Madame Guyon, and there discovered by Mr. Botham. 
Not much was said on the subject of the document, 
which seems to have been considered too awful to bear 
discussion ; but the children were removed from the 
influence of the nurse, and allowed to attend a day- 
school in the neighbourhood, though only on condition 
that they sat apart from the other children in order to 
avoid contamination with possible worldlings. 

In 1809 the two elder sisters were sent to a Quaker 
school at Croydon, where they found themselves the 
youngest, the most provincial, and the worst dressed of 
the little community. Even in advanced old age, Mary 
had a keen memory for the costumes of her childhood, 
and the mortification that these had caused her. On 
their arrival at school the little girls were attired in 
brown pelisses, cut plain and straight, without plait 
or fold, and hooked down the front to obviate the 
necessity for buttons, which, being in the nature of 
trimmings, were regarded as an indulgence of the lust 
of the eye. On their heads they Avore little drab 
beaver bonnets, also destitute of trimmings, and so 
plain in shape that even the Quaker hatter had to order 
special blocks for their manufacture. The other girls 
Avere busy over various kinds of fashionable fancy-work, 
but the little Bothams were expected, in their leisure 
moments, to make half-a-dozen linen shirts for their 
father, button-holes and all. They had never learnt to 
net, to weave coloured paper into baskets, to plait split 

aso 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

straw into patterns, nor any of the other amateur handi- 
crafts of the day. But they were clever with their 
fingers, and could copy almost anything that they had 
seen done. ' We could buckle flax or spin a rope,"" writes 
Mary. ' We could drive a nail, put in a screw or draw 
it out. We knew the use of a glue-pot, and how to 
paper a room. We soon furnished ourselves with 
coloured paper for plaiting, and straw to split and 
weave into net ; and I shall never forget my admira- 
tion of a pattern of diamonds woven with strips of gold 
paper on a black ground. It was my first attempt at 
artistic handiwork. "* 

After a few months at Croydon the girls were re- 
called to Uttoxeter on account of their mother's illness ; 
and as soon as she recovered they were despatched to 
another Friends"' school at Sheffield. In 1812, when 
Mary was only thirteen and Anna fifteen, their educa- 
tion was supposed to be completed, and they returned 
home for good. But Mr. Botham was dissatisfied with 
his daughters' attainments, and engaged the master of 
the boys' school to teach them Latin, mathematics, and 
the use of the globes. The death of this instructor 
obliged them thenceforward to rely on a system of self- 
education. ' We retained and perfected our rudimentary 
knowledge,"* Mary writes, ' by instructing others. Our 
father fitted up a school-room for us in the stable- 
loft, where, twice a week, we were allowed to teach 
poor children. In this room, also, we instructed our 
dear little brother and sister. Our father, in his 
beautiful handwriting, used to set them copies, texts 
of Scripture, such as he no doubt had found of 
a consolatory nature. On one occasion, however, I 
set the copies, and well remember the tribulation I 

331 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

experienced in consequence. I always warred in my mind 
against the enforced gloom of our home, and having 
for my private reading at that time Young's Night 
Tlioughts, came upon what seemed to me the very 
spirit of true religion, a cheerful heart gathering up 
the joyfulness of surrounding nature ; on which the 
poet says : " ""Tis impious in a good man to be sad." 
How I rejoiced in this ! — and thinking it a great fact 
which ought to be noised abroad, wrote it down in my 
best hand as a copy. It fell under our father's eye, and 
sorely grieved he was at such a sentiment, and extremely 
angry with me as its promulgator.'' 

The sisters can never have found the time hang heavy 
on their hands, for in addition to their educational 
duties, their mother required them to be expert in all 
household matters ; while, in their scanty hours of 
leisure, they attempted, in the face of every kind of 
discouragement, to satisfy their strong natural craving 
for beauty and knowledge. ' We studied poetry, 
botany, and flower-painting,' Mary writes. ' These 
pursuits were almost out of the pale of permitted 
Quaker pleasures, but we pursued them with a perfect 
passion, doing in secret that which we dared not do 
openly, such as reading Shakespeare, the elder novelists, 
and translations of the classics. We studied French 
and chemistry, and enabled ourselves to read Latin, 
storing our minds with a whole mass of heterogeneous 
knowledge. This was good as far as it went, but I 
now deplore the secrecy, the subterfuge, and the fear 
under which this ill-digested, ill-arranged knowledge 
was obtained.' 

The young Quakeresses picked up ideas and models 
for their artistic handicraft from the most unlikely 
332 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

sources. A shop-window, full of dusty plaster medallions 
for mantelpiece decorations, gave them their first notions 
of classic design. The black Wedgwood ware was to 
be seen in nearly every house in Uttoxeter, while a few 
of the more prosperous inhabitants possessed vases and 
jugs in the pale blue ware, ornamented with graceful 
figures. These precious specimens the Botham sisters 
used to borrow, and contrived to reproduce the figures by 
means of moulds made of paper pulp. They also etched 
flowers and landscapes on panes of glass, and manu- 
factured ' transparencies ' out of different thicknesses of 
cap-paper. ' I feel a sort of tender pity for Anna and 
myself,' wrote Mary long afterwards, ' when I remember 
how we were always seeking and struggling after the 
beautiful, and after artistic production, though we knew 
nothing of art. I am thankful that we made no 
alms-baskets, or hideous abortions of that kind. What 
we did was from the innate yearnings of our souls for 
perfection in form and colour ; and our accomplished 
work, though crude and poor, was the genuine outcome 
of our own individuality.' 

It was one of the heaviest crosses of Mary's girlish 
days that she and Anna were not permitted to exercise 
their clever fingers, and indulge their taste for the 
beautiful, in their own dress. But they found a faint 
vicarious pleasure in making pretty summer gowns, and 
embroidering elaborate muslin collars for a girl-friend 
who was allowed to wear fashionable clothes, and even 
to go to balls. Even their ultra-plain costumes, how- 
ever, could not disguise the fact that Anna and Mary 
Botham were comely damsels, and they had several 
suitors among the young men-Friends of Uttoxeter. 
But the sisters held a low opinion of the mental endow- 

333 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

merits of the average Quaker, an opinion that was only 
shaken by a report of the marvellous attainments of 
young William Howitt of Heanor, who was said to be 
not only a scholar, but a born genius. William's 
mother, Phoebe, herself a noted amateur healer, was an 
old friend of Mary's grandfather, the herbal doctor, but 
the young people had never met. However, in the autumn 
of 1818, William paid a visit to some relations at 
Uttoxeter, and there made the acquaintance of the 
Botham girls, who discovered that this young man- 
Friend shared nearly all their interests, and was full of 
sympathy with their studies and pursuits. 

Before the end of the year Mary Botham was engaged 
to William Howitt, he being then six-and-twenty and 
she nineteen. ' The tastes of my future husband and 
my own were strongly similar,' she observes, ' so also was 
our mental culture ; but he was in every direction so 
far in advance of me as to become my teacher and 
guide. Knowledge in the broadest sense was the aim 
of our intellectual efforts ; poetry and nature were the 
paths that led to it. Of ballad poetry I was already 
enamoured. William made me acquainted with the 
realistic life-pictures of Crabbe ; the bits of nature and 
poetry in the vignettes of Bewick ; with the earliest 
works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, and the 
first marvellous prose productions of the author of 
Waverley.'' 

After an engagement lasting a little more than two 
years, William and Mary were married on April 16, 
1821, the bride wearing her first silk gown — a pretty 
dove-colour — and a white silk shawl, finery which filled 
her soul with rapture. The couple spent the honey- 
moon in the bridegroom's native Derbyshire, visiting 
334 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

every spot of beauty or haunt of old tradition in that 
country of the romantic and the picturesque. 

Incorporated in his wife''s Autohiograpliy is William 
Howitfs narrative of his parentage and youthful days, 
which is supplemented by his Boys' Country Book, the 
true story of his early adventures and experiences. The 
Howitts, he tells us, were descended from a family 
named Hewitt, the younger branch of which obtained 
Wansley Hall, near Nottingham, through marriage with 
an heiress, and changed the spelling of their name. 
His ancestors had been, for generations, a rollicking set, 
all wofully lacking in prudence and sobriety. About 
the end of the seventeenth century, one Thomas 
Howitt, great-great-grandfather of William, married 
Catherine, heiress of the Charltons of Chilwell. But 
Thomas so disgusted his father-in-law by his drunken 
habits that Mr. Charlton disinherited his daughter, who 
loyally refused to leave her husband, and left his pro- 
perty to a stranger who chanced to bear his name. 
After this misfortune the Howitts descended somewhat 
in the social scale, and, having no more substance to 
waste, reformed their ways and forsook all riotous 
living. William''s father, who held a post as manager 
of a Derbyshire colliery, married a Quaker lady, Phoebe 
Tantum of the Fall, Heanor, and was himself received 
into the Society of Friends in 1783. 

William received a good plain education at a Quaker 
school at Ackworth, and grew up a genuine country 
lad, scouring the lanes on his famous grey pony, Peter 
Scroggins, the acknowledged leader of the village lads 
in bird-nesting and rat-hunting expeditions, and taking 
his full share of the work on his father's little farm. 
Long afterwards he used to say that every scene in and 

335 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

about Heanor was photographed with absolute distinct- 
ness on his brain, and he loved to recall the long days 
that he had spent in following the plough, chopping 
turnips for the cattle, tramping over the snow-covered 
fields after red-wing and fieldfare, collecting acorns for 
the swine, or hunting through the barns for eggs. The 
Howitt family was much less strict than that of the 
Bothams, for in the winter evenings the boys were 
allowed to play draughts and dominoes, while at Christ- 
mas there were games of forfeits, blind-man's buff, and 
fishing for the ring in the great posset-pot. 

On leaving school at fifteen, William amused himself 
for a couple of years on the farm, though, curiously 
enough., he never thought of becoming a farmer in good 
earnest ; indeed, at this time he seems to have had no 
distinct bias towards any profession. Mr. Howitt had 
somehow become imbued with Rousseau's doctrine that 
every boy, whatever his position in life, should learn a 
mechanical handicraft, in order that, if all else failed, 
he might be able to earn his own living by the labour 
of his hands. Having decided that William should 
learn carpentering, the boy was apprenticed for four 
years to a carpenter and builder at Mansfield, on the 
outskirts of Sherwood Forest. The four precious years 
were practically thrown away, except for the enjoy- 
ment obtained from long solitary rambles amid the 
picturesque associations of the Forest, and the knowledge 
of natural history gained from close observation of the 
wild life of that romantic district. 

It was not until his twenty-first birthday that 

William's indentures were out, and as he was still 

unable to make up his mind about a profession — it 

must be remembered that the law, the church, the army 

336 



WILLIAM AND MARY HO WITT 

and navy were all closed to a Quaker — he spent the next 
seven years at home, angling in the streams like his 
favourite hero, Isaac Walton, and striving, by dint of 
hard study, to make up the many deficiencies in his 
education. He taught himself Latin, French, and 
Italian, besides working at botany, chemistry, and the 
dispensing of medicines. It was during these seven 
years of uncertainty and experiment that William read 
Washington Irving's Sketches of Geoffrey Crayon, which 
produced a strong impression on his mind. With the 
inspiration of this book hot upon him, he made a tour 
on foot through the Peak country, and afterwards wrote 
an account of his adventures in what he fondly believed 
to be the style of Geoffrey Crayon. The paper was 
printed in a local journal under the title of A Pedestrian 
Pilgrimage through the Peak, by Wilfrid Wendle. This 
was not William Howitfs first literary essay, some 
stanzas of his on Spring, written when he was only 
thirteen, having been printed in the Monthly Magazine, 
with his name and age attached. 

With the prospect of marriage it was thought desir- 
able that William should have some regular calling. 
Without, so far as appears, passing any examinations or 
obtaining any certificates, he bought the business of a 
chemist and druggist in Hanley, and thither, though 
with no intention of settling permanently in the Pot- 
teries, he took his bride as soon as the honeymoon was 
over. Only seven months were spent at Hanley, and in 
December, 1821, the couple were preparing to move to 
Nottingham, where William had bought the good-will 
of another chemist's business. But before settling down 
in their new home, the Howitts undertook a long 
pedestrian tour through Scotland and the north of 
Y 337 



AVILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

England, in the course of which they explored the Rob 
Roy country, rambled through Fife, made acquaintance 
with the beauties of Edinburgh, looked in upon Robert 
Owen''s model factories at New Lanark, got a glimpse of 
Walter Scott at Melrose, were mistaken for a runaway 
couple at Gretna Green, gazed reverently on Rydal 
Mount, and tramped in all no less than five hundred 
miles. An account of the tour was contributed to a 
Staffordshire paper under the title of A Scottish Ramble 
in the Spring of 18^2, by Wilfrid and Wilfreda Wendle. 
It was not until August, 1822, that the pair estab- 
lished themselves in a little house at Nottingham. Of 
the chemist's business we hear practically nothing in 
Mary"'s narrative, but a great deal about the literary 
enterprises in which husband and wife collaborated. 
They began by collecting the poems, of which each had 
a large number ready written, and, in fear and trembling, 
prepared to submit them to the verdict of critics and 
public. ' It seems strange to me,** wrote Mary, when 
she informed her sister of this modest venture, ' and I 
cannot reconcile myself to the thought of seeing my 
own name staring me in the face in every bookseller's 
window, or being pointed at and peeped after as a Avriter 
of verses." In April, 1823, The Forest Minstrel and 
other Poems, by William and Mary Howitt, made its 
appearance in a not particularly appreciative world. 
The verses were chiefly descriptive of country sights and 
sounds, and had been produced, as stated in the Preface, 
' not for the sake of writing, but for the indulgence of 
our own overflowing feelings.' The little book created 
no sensation, but it was kindly noticed, and seems to 
have attracted a few quiet readers who, like the writers, 
were lovers of nature and simplicity. 
338 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

During these early years at Nottingham the Howitts 
kept up, as far as their opportunities allowed, with the 
thought and literature of their day, and never relaxed 
their anxious efforts after ' mental improvement.' 
William''s brother, llichard, himself a budding poet, 
was at this time an inmate of the little household, 
which was increased in 1824 by the birth of a daughter, 
Anna Mary. Although the couple still remained in the 
Quaker fold, they were gradually discarding the peculiar 
dress and speech of the ' plain ' Friends. They were 
evidently regarded as terribly ' advanced "* young people 
in their own circle, and shocked many of their old 
acquaintances by the catholicity of their views, by their 
admiration of Byron and Shelley, and by the liberal 
tone of their oAvn productions. l.,ike most of the lesser 
writers of that day, they found their way into the 
popular Keepsakes and Annuals, which Mary accurately 
describes as ' a chaffy, frivolous, and unsatisfactory style 
of publication, that only serves to keep a young author 
in the mind of the public, and to bring in a little cash."* 
In 1826 Mrs. Howitt was preparing for the press a new 
volume of poems by herself and her husband, The 
Desolation of Eyam^ and in a letter to her sister, now 
transformed into Mrs. Daniel Wilson, she describes her 
sensations while awaiting the ordeal of critical judg- 
ment, and expresses her not very flattering opinion of 
the contemporary reviewer. 

' Nobody that has not published,'' she observes, ' can 
tell the almost painful excitement which the first 
opinions occasion. Really, for some days I was quite 
nervous. William boasted of possessing his mind in 
wise passivity, and truly his imperturbable patience was 
quite an annoyance; I therefore got Rogers's beautiful 

339 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

poem on Italy to read, and so diverted my thoughts. 
Everything in the literary world is done by favour and 
connections. It is a miracle to me how our former 
volume, when we were quite unknown, got favourably 
noticed. In many cases a book is reviewed which has 
never been read, or even seen externally."' 

By this time the young authors who, to use Mary's own 
phrase, hungered and thirsted after acquaintances who 
were highly gifted in mind or profound in knowledge, had 
acquired one or two literary friends and correspondents, 
among them Mrs. Hemans, Bernard Barton, the Quaker 
poet, and the Alaric Watts's of Keepsake fame. An 
occasional notice of the Howitts and their little house- 
hold may be found in contemporary works by forgotten 
writers. For example. Sir Richard Phillips, in the 
section devoted to Nottingham of his quaintly-worded 
Personal Tour through the United Kingdom (1828), 
observes : ' Of Messrs. Howitt, husband and wife, con- 
jugal in love and poetry, it would be vain for me to 
speak. Their tasteful productions belong to the nation 
as well as to Nottingham. As a man of taste Mr. 
Howitt married a lady of taste ; and with rare amiability 
they have jointly cultivated the Muses, and produced 
some volumes of poetry, consisting of pieces under their 
separate names. The circumstance afforded a topic for 
ridicule to some of those anonymous critics who abuse 
the press and disgrace literature ; but no one ventured 
to assail their productions."* Spencer Hall, a fellow- 
townsman, became acquainted with the Howitts in 
1829, and in his Reminiscences describes William as 
a bright, neat, quick, dapper man of medium height, 
with a light complexion, blue eyes, and brisk, cheery 
speech. Mary, he tells us, was always neatly dressed, 
340 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

but with nothing prim or sectarian in her style. ' Her 
expression was frank and free, yet very modest, and she 
was blessed with an affectionate, sociable spirit/ 

A presentation copy of The Desolation of Eyam was 
sent to the Howitts' favourite poet, Wordsworth, who, 
in acknowledging their ' elegant volume,"* declared that, 
though he had only had time to turn over the leaves, he 
had found several poems which had already afforded him 
no small gratification. The harmless little book was 
denounced by the Eclectic Review as ' anti-Quakerish, 
atheistical, and licentious in style and sentiment,' but 
the authors were consoled by a charming little notice 
of their contributions to the Annuals in the Nodes 
Jmbrosianoe for November, 1828. * Who are these 
three brothers and sisters, the Howitts, sir .'' *" asks the 
Shepherd of Christopher North, in the course of a 
discussion of the Christmas gift-books, ' whose names I 
see in the adverteesements ? "■ 

North. I don't know, James. It runs in my head that 
they are Quakers. Richard and William seem amiable 
and ingenious men, and Sister Mary writes beautifully. 

Shepherd. What do you mean by beautifully ? That 's 
vague. 

North. Her language is chaste and simple, her feel- 
ings tender and pure, and her observation of nature 
accurate and intense. Her ' Sketches from Natural 
History ' in the Christmas Box have much of the moral 
— nay, rather the religious spirit — that permeates all 
Wordsworth's smaller poems, however light and slight 
the subject, and show that Mary Howitt is not only 
well-read in the book of Bewick, but also in the book 
from which Bewick has borrowed all — glorious plagiarist 

— and every other inspired zoologist 

341 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

Shepherd. The Book o' Natur\' 

The great event of 1829 for the Howitts was a visit 
to London, where they were the guests of Alaric and 
Zillah Watts, with whom they had long maintained a 
paper friendship. ' What wilt thou say, dear Anna,' 
writes Mary in December, ' when I tell thee that William 
and I set out for London the day after to-morrow. I 
half dread it. I shall wish twenty times for our quiet 
fireside, where day by day we read and talk by ourselves, 
and nobody looks in upon us. I keep reasoning with 
myself that the people we shall see in London are but 
men and women, and perhaps, after all, no better than 
ourselves. If we could but divest our minds of self^ as 
our dear father used to say we should do, it would be 
better and more comfortable for us. Yet it is one of 
the faults peculiar to us Bothams that, with all the 
desire there was to make us regardless of self, we never 
had confidence and proper self-respect instilled into us, 
and the want of this gives us a depressing feeling, 
though I hope it is less seen by others than by our- 
selves. . . . We do not intend to stay more than a 
week, and thou may believe we shall have enough to do. 
We have to make special calls on the Carter Halls, Dr. 
Bowring, and the Pringles, and are to be introduced to 
their ramifications of acquaintance. Allan Cunning- 
ham, L. E. L., and Thomas Roscoe we are sure to see."" 

In Miss Landon's now forgotten novel, Romance and 
Reality, there is a little sketch of Mary Howitt as she 
appeared at a literary soiree, during her brief visit to 
London. The heroine. Miss Arundel, is being initiated 
into the mysteries of the writing world by her friend, 
Mrs. Sullivan, when her attention is arrested by the 
sight of ' a female in a Quaker's dress — the quiet, dark 
342 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

silk dress — the hair simply parted on the forehead — 
the small, close cap — the placid, subdued expression of 
the face, were all in strong contrast to the crimsons, 
yellows, and blues around. The general character of 
the large, soft eyes seemed sweetness ; but they were 
now lighted up with an expression of intelligent obser- 
vation — that clear, animated, and comprehensive glance 
which shows it analyses what it observes. You looked 
at her with something of the sensation with which, 
while travelling along a dusty road, the eye fixes on 
some green field, where the hour flings its sunshine and 
the tree its shadow, as if its pure fresh beauty was a 
thing apart from the soil and tumult of the highway. 
" Y^'ou see," said Mrs, Sullivan, " one who, in a brief 
interview, gave me more the idea of a poet than most of 
our modern votaries of the lute. . . . She is as creative 
in her imaginary poems as she is touching and true in 
her simpler ones." ' 

Though there were still giants upon the earth in 
those far-off days, the general standard of literary taste 
was by no means exalted, a fact which Mary Howitt 
could hardly be expected to realise. She seems to have 
taken the praises lavished on her simple verses over- 
seriously, and to have imagined herself in very truth a 
poet. She was more clear-sighted where the work of 
her fellow-scribes was concerned, and in a letter written 
about this time, she descants upon the dearth of good 
literature in a somewhat disillusioned vein. After ex- 
pressing her desire that some mighty spirit would rise 
up and give an impulse to poetry, she continues : ' I am 
tired of Sir Walter Scott and his imitators, and I am 
sickened of Mrs. Hemans's luscious poetry, and all her 
tribe of copyists. The libraries set in array one school 

343 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

against another, and hurry out the trashy volumes before 
the ink of the manuscript is fairly dry. Dost thou 
remember the days when Byron's poems first came out, 
now one and then another, at sufficient intervals to 
allow of digesting them ? And dost thou remember 
our first reading of Lalla Rookh ? It was on a washing- 
day. We read and clapped our clear-starching, read 
and clapped, and read again, and all the time our souls 
were not on this earth."* 

There was one book then in course of preparation 
which Mary thought worthy to have been read, even in 
those literary clear-starching days. ' Thou hast no 
idea,' she assures her sister, ' how very interesting 
William's work, now called A Book of the Seasons, has 
become. It contains original sketches on every month, 
with every characteristic of the season, and a garden 
department which will fill thy heart brimful of all 
garden delights, greenness, and boweriness. Mountain 
scenery and lake scenery, meadows and woods, hamlets, 
farms, halls, storm and sunshine — all are in this most 
delicious book, grouped into a most harmonious whole.' 
Unfortunately, publishers were hard to convince of the 
merits of the new work, the first of William Howitt's 
rural series, and it was declined by four houses in turn. 
The author at last suggested that a stone should be 
tied to the unlucky manuscript, and that it should 
be flung over London Bridge ; but his wife was not so 
easily disheartened. She was certain that the book was 
a worthy book, and only needed to be made a little 
more ' personable ' to find favour in the eyes of a 
publisher. Accordingly, blotted sheets were hastily re- 
copied, new articles introduced, and passages of dubious 
interest omitted, husband and wife working together at 
344 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

this remodelling until their fingers ached and their eyes 
were as dim as an owl's in sunshine. Their labours 
were rewarded by the acceptance of the work by Bentley 
and Colburn, and its triumphant success with both 
critics and public, seven editions being called for in the 
first few months of its career. 

' Prig it and pocket it,' says Christopher North, 
alluding to the Book oj the Seasons in the Nodes for 
April, 1831. "Tisajewel.' 

' Is Nottingham far intil England, sir ? asks the 
simple Shepherd, to whom the above advice is given. 
' For I would really like to pay the Hooits a visit this 
simmer. Thae Quakers are what we micht scarcely 
opine frae first principles, a maist poetical Christian 
seek. . . . The twa married Hooits I love just exces- 
sively, sir. What they write canna fail o' being poetry, 
even the most middlin' o't, for ifs aye wi"" them the 
ebullition o' their ain feeling and their ain fancy, and 
whenever that 's the case, a bonny word or twa will drap 
itself intil ilka stanzy, and a sweet stanzy or twa intil 
ilka pome, and sae they touch, and sae they win a 
body's heart.' 

The year 1831 was rendered memorable to the 
Howitts, not only by their first literary success, but 
also by an unexpected visit from their poetical idol, Mr. 
Wordsworth. The poet, his wife and daughter, were 
on their way home from London when Mrs. Words- 
worth was suddenly taken ill, and was unable to proceed 
farther than Nottingham. Her husband, in great per- 
plexity, came to ask advice of the Howitts, who insisted 
that the invalid should be removed to their house, where 
she remained for ten days before she was able to continue 
her journey. Wordsworth himself was only able to stay 

345 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

one night, but in that short time he made a very favour- 
able impression npon his host and hostess. ' He is 
worthy of being the author of The Excursion, Ruth, and 
those sweet poems so full of human sympathy,' writes 
Mary. ' He is a kind man, full of strong feeling and 
sound judgment. My greatest delight was that he 
seemed so pleased with William's conversation. They 
seemed quite in their element, pouring out their eloquent 
sentiments on the future prospects of society, and on all 
subjects connected with poetry and the interests of man. 
Nor are we less pleased with Mrs. Wordsworth and her 
lovely daughter, Dora. They are the most grateful 
people ; everything that we do for them is right, and 
the very best it can be.' 

During the next two or three years Mary produced 
a volume of dramatic sketches, called The Seven Tempta- 
tions^ which she always regarded as her best and most 
original work, but which was damned by the critics and 
neglected by the public ; a little book of natural history 
for children ; and a novel in three volumes, called Wood 
Leig'hton, which seems to have had some success. The 
Seven Temptations, it must be owned, is a rather 
lugubrious production, probably inspired by Joanna 
Baillie's Plays on the Passions. The scene of Wood 
Leighton is laid at Uttoxeter, and the book is not so 
much a connected tale as a series of sketches descriptive 
of scenes and characters in and about the author's early 
home. It is evident that Mrs. Botham and Sister 
Anna looked somewhat disapprovingly upon so much 
literary work for the mistress of a household, since 
we find Mary writing in eager defence of her chosen 
calling. 

' I want to make thee, and more particularly dear 
346 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

mother, see,' she explains, ' that I am not out of mj line 
of duty in devoting myself so much to literary occupa- 
tion. Just lately things were sadly against us. Dear 
William could not sleep at night, and the days were 
dark and gloomy. Altogether, I was at my wits'* end. 
I turned over in my mind what I could do next, for till 
Willianrs Rural Life was finished we had nothing avail- 
able. Then I bethought myself of all those little verses 
and prose tales that for years I had written for the 
juvenile Annuals. It seemed probable I might turn 
them to some account. In about a week I had nearly 
all the poetry copied ; and then who should come to 
Nottingham but John Darton [a Quaker publisher]. 
He fell into the idea immediately, took what I had 
copied up to London with him, and I am to have a 
hundred and fifty guineas for them. Have I not 
reason to feel that in thus writing I was fulfilling a 
duty ? ' 

In 1833 William Howitt's History of Priestcraft 
appeared, a work which was publicly denounced at the 
Friends' yearly meeting, all good Quakers being cautioned 
not to read it. William hitherto had lived in great 
retirement at Nottingham, but he was now claimed bv 
the Radical and Nonconformist members of the com- 
munity as their spokesman and champion. In January, 
1834, he and Joseph Gilbert (husband of Ann Gilbert 
of Original Poems fame) were deputed to present to 
the Prime Minister, Lord Grey, a petition from Notting- 
ham for the disestablishment of the Church of England. 
The Premier regretted that he could not give his 
support to such a sweeping measure, which would em- 
barrass the Ministry, alarm both Houses of Parliament, 
and startle the nation. He declared his intention of 

347 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

standing by the Church to the best of his ability, 
believing it to be the sacred duty of Government to 
maintain an establishment of religion. To which 
sturdy William Hewitt replied that to establish one 
sect in preference to another was to establish a party 
and not a religion. 

Civic duties, together with the excitements of local 
politics, proved a sad hindrance to literary work, and 
in 1836 the Howitts, who had long been yearning for 
a wuder intellectual sphere, decided to give up the 
chemist's business, and settle in the neighbourhood of 
London. Their friends, the Alaric Watts's, who were 
living at Thames Ditton, found them a pretty little 
house at Esher, where they would be able to enjoy the 
woods and heaths of rural Surrey, and yet be within 
easy reach of publishers and editors in town. Before 
settling down in their new home, the Howitts made 
a three months' tour in the north, with a view to gather- 
ing materials for William's book on Rural England. 
They explored the Yorkshire dales, stayed with the 
Wordsworths at Rydal, and made a pilgrimage to the 
haunts of their favourite, Thomas Bewick, in Northumber- 
land. Crossing the Border they paid a delightful visit 
to Edinburgh, where they were made much of by the 
three literary cliques of the city, the Blackwood and 
Wilson set, the Tait set, and the Chambers set. 

' Immediately after our arrival,' relates Mary, ' a public 
dinner was given to Campbell the poet, at which the 
committee requested my husband's attendance, and that 
he would take a share in the proceedings of the evening 
by proposing as a toast, " Wordsworth, Southey, and 
^loore." This was our first introduction to Professor 
Wilson (Christopher North) and his family. I sat in 
348 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

the gallery with Mrs. Wilson and her daughters, one 
of whom was engaged to Professor Ferrier. We could 
not but remark the wonderful difference, not only in the 
outer man, but in the whole character of mind and 
manner, between Professor Wilson and Campbell — the 
one so hearty, outspoken, and joyous, the other so petty 
and trivial.' 

Robert Chambers constituted himself the Howitts' 
cicerone in Edinburgh, showing them every place of 
interest, and presenting them to every person of note, 
including Mrs. Maclehose (the Clarinda of Burns), and 
William Miller, the Quaker artist and engraver, as 
intense a nature-worshipper as themselves. From Edin- 
burgh they went to Glasgow, where they took ship for 
the Western Isles. Their adventures at Staffa and 
lona, their voyage up the Caledonian Canal, and the 
remainder of their experiences on this tour, were after- 
wards described by William Howitt in his Visits to 
Remarkable Places. 



PART II 

In September, 1836, the Howitts took possession of 
their Surrey home, West End Cottage, an old-fashioned 
dwelling, with a large garden, an orchard, a meadow by 
the river Mole, and the right of boating and fishing to 
the extent of seven miles. The new life opened with 
good prospects of literary and journalistic employment, 
William Howitt's political writings having already 
attracted attention from several persons of power and 
influence in the newspaper world. On December 3 of 
this year, Mary wrote to inform her sister that, ' In 

349 



WILLIA^r AND MARY HOWITT 

consequence of an article that William wrote on 
Dyniond"'s Clvist'inn Morardf/, Joseph Hume, the 
member for ^Middlesex, wrote to him, and has opened 
a most promising connection for him with a new 
Radical newspaper, The Constitutional. O'Connell 
seems determined to make him the editor of the Dublin 
Bcviezc, and wrote him a most kind letter, which has 
naturally promoted his interest with the party. I 
cannot but see the hand of Providence in our leaving 
Nottingham. All has turned out admirably.' 

Unfortunately for these sanguine anticipations, the 
newspaper connections on which the Howitts depended 
for a livelihood, now that the despised chemist's busi- 
ness had been given up, proved but hollow supports. 
O'Connell had overlooked the trifling fact that a Quaker 
editor was hardly fitted to conduct a journal that was 
emphatically and polemically Catholic ; and though he 
considered that William Howitt was admirably adapted 
to deal with literary and political topics, he was obliged 
to withdraw his oft'er of the editorship. A more crush- 
ing disappointment arose out of the engagement on 
The Constitutional. iNIr. Howitt, according to his wife, 
did more for the paper than any other member of the 
staff. ' He worked and wrote like any slave,' she tells 
her sister. * In the end, after a series of the most 
harassing and vexatious conduct on the part of the 
newspaper company, he was swindled out of every 
farthing. Oh, it was a most mortifying and humiliating 
thing to see men professing liberal and honest principles 
act so badly. A month ago, when in the very depths 
of discouragement and low spirits, I set about a little 
volume for Darton, to be called Birds and Floicers, and 
have pretty nearly finished it. William, in the mean- 
350 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

time, has finished his Rural Life, and sold the first 
edition to Longman's.'' 

The manager of the unlucky paper was Major 
Carmichael Smith, who, when matters grew desperate, 
sent for his step-son, Thackeray, then acting as Paris 
correspondent for a London daily, ' Just as I was going 
out of the office one day,' writes William, ' I met on the 
stairs a tall, thin young man, in a dark blue coat, and 
with a nose that seemed to have had a blow that had 
flattened the bridge. I turned back, and had some con- 
versation with him, being anxious to know how he 
proposed to carry on a paper which was without any 
funds, and already deeply in debt. He did not seem to 
know any more than I did. I thought to myself that 
his step-father had not done him much service in taking 
him from a profitable post for the vain business of 
endeavouring to buoy up a desperate speculation. How 
much longer Tlie Coyist'ihdional struggled on, I know 
not. That was the first time I ever saw or heard of 
William Makepeace Thackeray.' 

The Howitts were somewhat consoled for their jour- 
nalistic losses by the triumphant success of Rural Life in 
England. The reading public which, during the previous 
century, had swallowed mock pastorals, made in Fleet 
Street, with perfect serenity, was now, thanks to the 
slowly-working influence of Wordsworth and the other 
Lake poets, prepared for a renaissance of nature and 
simplicity in prose. Miss Mitford's exquisite work had 
given them a distaste for the 'jewelled turf,' the 'silver 
streams,' and ' smiling valleys ' which constituted the 
rustic stock-in-trade of the average novelist ; and they 
eagerly welcomed a book that treated with accuracy 
and observation of the real country. William Howitt's 

351 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

straightforward, undistinguished style was acceptable 
enough in an age when even men of genius seem to have 
written fine prose without knowing it, and tripped up 
not infrequently over the subtleties of English grammar. 
His lack of imagination and humour was more than 
atoned for, in the uncritical eyes of the ' thirties,' by 
the easy loquacity of his rural gossip, and the varied 
information with which he crammed his pages. The 
Nature of those days was a simple, transparent creature, 
with but small resemblance to the lady of moods, 
mystery, and passion who is so overworked in our modern 
literature. No one dreamt of going into hysterics over 
the veining of a leaf, or penning a rhapsody on the outline 
of a rain-cloud ; nor could it yet be said that, ' if every- 
body must needs blab of the favours that have been done 
him by roadside, and river-brink, and woodland walk, as 
if to kiss and tell were no longer treachery, it will soon 
be a positive refreshment to meet a man who is as 
superbly indifferent to Nature as she is to him."'^ 

The Howitts took great delight in the pleasant 
Surrey country, so different from the dreary scenery 
around Nottingham, and Mary's letters contain many 
descriptions of the woods and commons and shady lanes 
through which the family made long expeditions in a 
little carriage drawn by Peg, their venerable pony. 
Driving one day to Hook, they met Charles Dickens, 
then best known as ' Boz,' in one of his long tramps, 
with Harrison Ainsworth as his companion. When 
Dickens's next work. Master Humphrey's Clock, appeared, 
the Howitts were amused to see that their stout and 
wilful Peg had not escaped the novelist's keen eye, but 
had been pressed into service for Mr. Garland's chaise. 

^ Lowell. 

352 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

On another occasion, in July 1841, William, while 
driving with a friend, was attacked by two handsome, 
dark-eyed girls, dressed in gipsy costume, who ran one 
on each side of the carriage, begging that the kind 
gentleman would give them sixpence, as they were poor 
strangers who had taken nothing all day. Mr. Howitt, 
who had made a special study of the gipsy tribe, per- 
ceived in an instant that these were only sham Romanys. 
He paid no attention to their pleading, but observed 
that he hoped they would enjoy their frolic, and only 
wished that he were as rich as they. Subsequently, he 
discovered that the mock-gipsies, who had been unable 
to coax a sixpence out of him, were none other than the 
beautiful Sheridan sisters, the Duchess of Somerset, and 
Mrs. Blackwood (afterwards Lady Dufferin), whose 
husband had lately taken Bookham Lodge, 

During the four years spent at Esher, Mary seems to 
have been too much occupied with the cares of a young 
family to use her pen to much purpose. She produced 
little, except a volume of Hymns and Fireside Verses, 
but she frequently assisted her husband in his work. 
William, industrious as ever, published, besides a large 
number of newspaper articles, his Boys^ Country Book, 
the best work of the kind ever written, according to the 
Quarterly Review ; and his History of Colonisation and 
Christianity, in which he took a rapid survey of the 
behaviour of the Christian nations of Europe to the 
inhabitants of the countries they conquered in all parts 
of the world. It was the reading of this book that led 
Mr. Joseph Pease to establish the British India Society, 
which issued, in a separate form, the portion of the work 
that related to India. Mr. Howitt next set to work 
upon another topographical volume, his Visits to RemarJc- 
z 353 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

able Places, in which he turned to good account the 
materials collected in his pedestrian rambles about the 
country. 

In 1840 the question of education for the elder 
children became urgent, and the Howitts, who had 
heard much of the advantages of a residence in Germany 
from their friends, Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Jameson, and 
Henry Chorley, decided to give up their cottage at 
Esher, and spend two or three years at Heidelberg. 
Letters of introduction from Mrs. Jameson gave them 
the entree into German society, which they found more 
to their taste than that of their native land. ' For the 
sake of our children,' writes Mary, ' we sought German 
acquaintances, we read German, we followed German 
customs. The life seemed to me easier, the customs 
simpler and less expensive than in England. There was 
not the same feverish thirst after wealth as with us ; 
there was more calm appreciation of nature, of music, 
of social enjoyment.' In their home on the Neckar, the 
Howitts, most adaptable of couples, found new pleasures 
and new amusements with each season of the year. In 
the spring and summer they explored the surrounding 
country, wandered through the deep valleys and woods, 
where the grass was purple with bilberries, visited quaint, 
half-timbered homesteads, standing in the midst of 
ancient orchards, or followed the swift-flowing streams, 
on whose banks the peasant girls in their picturesque 
costumes were washing and drying linen. In the autumn 
the whole family turned out on the first day of the 
vintage, and worked like their neighbours. ' It was 
like something Arcadian,' wrote Mary when recalling 
the scene. ' The tubs and baskets piled up with enor- 
mous clusters, the men and women carrying them away 
354 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

on their heads to the j^lace where they were being 
crushed ; the laughter, the merriment, the feasting, the 
firing — for they make as much noise as they can — all 
was delightful, to say nothing of the masquerading and 
dancing in the evening, which we saw, though we did 
not take part in it."" In the winter the strangers were 
introduced to the Christmas Tree, which had not yet 
become a British institution : while with the first snow 
came the joys of sleighing, when wheel-barrows, tubs, 
baskets, everything that could be put on runners, 
were turned into sledges, and the boys were in their 
glory. 

During the three years that were spent at Heidelberg, 
William Howitt wrote his Student Life hi Germany^ 
German Experiences^ and Rural and Domestic Life in 
German?/, works which contain a great deal of more 
or less valuable information about the country and the 
people, presented in a homely, unpretentious style. 
Mary was no less industrious, having struck a new 
litei'ary vein, the success of which was far to surpass 
her modest anticipations. ' I have been very busy,^ she 
writes in 1842, ' translating the first volume of a charm- 
ing work by Frederica Bremer, a Swedish writer ; and if 
any publisher will give me encouragement to go on with 
it, I will soon complete the work. It is one of a series 
of stories of everyday life in Sweden — a beautiful book, 
full of the noblest moral lessons for every man and 
woman."' In the summer of 1841 the Howitts, accom- 
panied by their elder daughter, Anna, made a long tour 
through Germany and Austria, in the course of which 
they collected materials for fresh works, and visited the 
celebrities, literary and artistic, of the various cities 
that lay in their route. At Stuttgart they called on 

355 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

Gustav Schwab, the poet, and visited Dannecker's 
studio ; at Tubingen they made the acquaintance of 
Uhland, and at Munich that of Kaulbach, then at the 
height of his fame. By way of Vienna and Prague they 
travelled to Dresden, where, through the good offices of 
Mrs. Jameson, they were received by Moritz Retzsch, 
whose Oidlines they had long admired. At Berlin they 
made friends with Tieck, on whom the king had 
bestowed a pension and a house at Potsdam ; while at 
Weimar they Avere entertained by Frau von Goethe, 
whose son, Wolfgang, had been one of their earliest 
acquaintances at Heidelberg. This interesting tour is 
described at length in the Rw-al and Domestic Life of 
Germany. 

Another year was spent at Heidelberg, but the diffi- 
culties of arranging the business details of their work at 
such a distance from publishers and editors, brought 
the industrious couple back to London in the spring of 
1843. * On our return to England,' writes Mary, 'I 
was full of energy and hope. Glowing with aspiration, 
and in enjoyment of great domestic happiness, I was 
anticipating a busy, perhaps overburdened, but, never- 
theless, congenial life. It was to be one of darkness, 
perplexity, discouragement.' The Howitts had scarcely 
entered into possession of a new house that they had 
taken at Clapton, when news came from Heidelberg, 
where the elder children had been left at school, that 
their second son, Claude, had developed alarming 
symptoms of disease in the knee-joint. It was known 
that he had been slightly injured in play a few weeks 
before, but no danger had been anticipated. Mr. Howitt 
at once set out for Heidelberg, and returned with the 
invalid, on whose case Liston was consulted. The great 
356 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

surgeon counselled amputation, but to this the parents 
refused their consent, except as a last resource. Various 
less heroic modes of treatment were tried, but poor 
Claude faded away, and died in March, 1844, aged only 
ten years and a half. This was the heaviest trial that 
the husband and wife had yet experienced, for Claude 
had been a boy of brilliant promise, whom they regarded 
as the flower of their flock. Only a few months before 
his accident his mother had written in the pride of her 
heart : ' Claude is the naughtiest of all the children, and 
yet the most gifted. He learns anything at a glance. 
Claude is born to be fortunate ; he is one that will make 
the family distinguished in the next generation. He has 
an extraordinary faculty for telling stories, either of his 
own invention or of what he reads." 

A lesser cause of trouble and anxiety arose out of 
the translation of Miss Bremer's novels. ' When we 
first translated The Neighbours,^ writes Mary, 'there 
was not a house in London that would undertake its 
publication. We published it and the other Bremer 
novels at our own risk, but such became the rage for 
them that our translations were seized by a publisher, 
altered, and reissued as new ones.' The success of these 
books was said to be greater than that of any series 
since the first appearance of the Waverley novels. Cheap 
editions were multiplied in the United States, and even 
the boys who hawked the books about the streets were to 
be seen deep in The Home or The H. Family. In a letter 
to her sister written about this time, Mary expatiates on 
the annoyance and loss caused by these piracies. ' It is 
very mortifying,"" she observes, ' because no one knew of 
these Swedish novels till we introduced them. It 
obliges us to hurry in all we do, and we must work 

357 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

almost day and night to get ours out in order that we 
may have some little chance. . . . We have embarked 
a great deal of money in the publication, and the inter- 
ference of the upstart London publisher is most annoy- 
ing. Mile. Bremer, however, has written a new novel, 
and sends it to us before publication. We began its 
translation this week, and hope to be able to publish it 
about the time it will appear in Sweden and Germany.' 

In addition to her translating work, Mrs. Hovvitt was 
engaged at this time upon a series of little books, called 
Tales Jhr the People and their Children^ which had been 
commissioned by a cheap publisher. These stories, each 
of which illustrated a domestic virtue, were punctually 
paid for ; and though they were never advertised, they 
passed swiftly through innumerable editions, and have 
been popular with a certain public down to quite recent 
times. Perhaps the most attractive is the Autobiography 
of a Child, in which Mary told the story of her own 
early days in her pretty, simple style, with the many 
little quaint touches that gave all her juvenile stories 
an atmosphere of truth and reality. Her quick sympathy 
with young people, and her knowledge of what most 
appealed to the childish mind, was probably due to her 
vivid remembrance of her own youthful days, and to her 
affectionate study of the ' little ways ' of her own 
children. Many are the original traits and sayings that 
she reports to her sister, more especially those of her 
youngest boy, Charlton, who had inherited his parents' 
naturalistic tastes in a pronounced form, and preferred 
the Quakers' meeting-house to any other church or 
chapel, because there was a dog-kennel on the premises ! 

About a year after her return to England, Mrs. 
Howitt turned her attention to Danish literature, 
358 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

finding that, with her knowledge of Swedish and German, 
the language presented few difficulties. In 1845 she 
translated Hans Andersen's Impj-ov'isatore^ greatly to 
the satisfaction of the author, who begged that she 
would continue to translate his works, till he was as 
well known and loved in England as he was on the 
Continent. Appreciation, fame, and joy, declared the 
complacent poet, followed his footsteps wherever he 
went, and his whole life was full of sunshine, like a 
beautiful fairy-tale. Mary translated his Only a Fiddler ; 
O. T., or Life m Denmark ; Tlie True Story of My Life ; 
and several of the Wonderful Stories for Children. The 
Improvisatore was the only one that went into a second 
edition, the other works scarcely paying the cost of 
publication. Hans Andersen, however, being assured 
that Mrs. Howitt was making a fortune of the trans- 
lations, came to England in 1847 to arrange for a 
share of the profits. Though disappointed in his hope 
of gain, he begged Mrs. Howitt to translate the whole 
of his fairy-tales, which had just been brought out in 
a beautifully-illustrated German edition. Much to her 
after regret, she was then too much engrossed by other 
work to be able to accede to his proposal. The rela- 
tions between Hans Andersen and his translator were 
marred, we are told, by the extreme sensitiveness and 
egoism of the Dane. Mrs. Howitt narrates, as an 
example of his childish vanity, the following little 
incident which occurred during his visit to England in 
the summer of 1847 : — 

' We had taken him, as a pleasant rural experience, 
to the annual hay-making at Hillside, Highgate, thus 
introducing him to an English home, full of poetry and 
art, sincerity, and affection. The ladies of Hillside — 

359 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

Miss Mary and Margaret Gillies, the one an embodi- 
ment of peace and an admirable ^vriter, whose talent, 
like the violet, kept in the shade ; the other, the warm- 
hearted painter — made him welcome. . . . Immediately 
after our arrival, the assembled children, loving his 
delightful fairv-tales, clustered round him in the hay- 
field, and watched him make them a pretty device of 
flowers ; then, feeling somehow that the stiff", silent 
foreigner was not kindred to themselves, stole off" to an 
American, Henry Clarke Wright, whose admirable little 
book, A Kiss for a Bloxc, some of them knew. He, 
without any suggestion of condescension or difference 
of age, entered heart and soul into their glee, laughed, 
shouted, and played with them, thus unconsciously 
evincing the gift which had made him earlier the ex- 
clusive pastor of six hundred children in Boston. Soon 
poor Andersen, perceiving himself neglected, complained 
of headache, and insisted on going indoors, Avhither 
Mary Gillies and I, both anxious to efffice any disagree- 
able impression, accompanied him ; but he remained 
irritable and out of sorts.' 

It M'as in 1845 or 1846 that the Howitts made the 
acquaintance of Tennyson, whose poetry they had long 
admired. ' The retiring and meditative young poet, 
Alfred Tennyson, visited us,"* relates JMary, ' and cheered 
our seclusion by the recitation of his exquisite poetry. 
He spent a Sunday night at our house, when we sat 
talking; too-ether till three in the morning. All the 
next day he remained with us in constant converse. We 
seemed to have known him for years. So in fact we 
had, for his poetry was himself. He hailed all attempts 
at heralding a grander, more liberal state of public 
opinion, and consequently sweeter, nobler modes of 
360 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

living. He wished that we Englanders could dress up 
our affections in more poetical costume ; real warmth 
of heart would gain rather than lose by it. As it was, 
our manners were as cold as the walls of our churches."' 
Another new friend was gained through William 
Howitt's book, Vints to Remarkable Places. When the 
work was announced as ' in preparation,' the author 
received a letter, signed E. C. Gaskell, drawing his 
attention to a beautiful old house, Clopton Hall, near 
Stratford-on-Avon. The letter described in such admir- 
able style the writer's visit to the house as a schoolgirl, 
that William wrote to suggest that she ought to use 
her pen for the public benefit. This timely encourage- 
ment led to the production of Mary Barton, the first 
volume of which was sent in manuscript for Mr. 
Howitt's verdict. A few months later Mrs. Gaskell 
came as a guest to the little house at Clopton, bringing 
with her the completed work. 

In 1846 William Howitt took part in a new journal- 
istic venture, his wife, as usual, sharing his labours and 
anxieties. He became first contributor, and afterwards 
editor and part-proprietor of the People" a Journal, a 
cheap weekly, through the medium of which he hoped 
to improve the moral and intellectual condition of the 
working classes. ' The bearing of its contents,' wrote 
Mary, in answer to some adverse criticism of the new 
paper, ' is love to God and man. There is no attempt 
to set the poor against the rich, but, on the contrary, 
to induce them to be careful, prudent, sober and inde- 
pendent ; above all, to be satisfied to be workers, and to 
regard labour as a privilege rather than as a penalty, 
which is quite our view of the matter.' The combina- 
tion of business and philanthropy seldom answers, and 

361 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

the Howitts, despite the excellence of their intentions, 
were unlucky in their newspaper speculations. At the 
end of a few months it was discovered that the manager 
of the People's Journal kept no books, and that the 
affairs of the paper were in hopeless confusion. William 
Howitt, finding himself responsible for the losses on the 
venture, tried to cure the evil by a hair of the dog that 
had bitten him. He withdrew from the PeopWs Journal^ 
and, with Samuel Smiles as his assistant, started a rival 
paper on the same lines, called HowiWs Journal. But, 
as Ebenezer Elliott, the shrewd old Quaker, remarked, 
apropos of the apathy of the working-class public : 
' Men engaged in a death struggle for bread will pay 
for amusement when they will not for instruction. They 
woo laughter to unscare them, that they may forget 
their perils, their wrongs, and their oppressors. If you 
were able and willing to fill the journal with fun, it 
would pay.' The failure of his paper spelt ruin to its 
promoter ; his copyrights, as well as those of his wife, 
were sacrificed, and he was obliged to begin the world 
anew. 

The Howitts seem to have kept up their spirits 
bravely under this reverse, and never for a moment 
relaxed in their untiring industry. They moved into a 
small house in Avenue Road, St. John's Wood, and 
looked around them for new subjects upon which to 
exercise their well-worn pens. Mary hoped to get 
employment from the Religious Tract Society, which 
had invited her to send in a specimen story, but she 
feared that her work would hardly be considered suffi- 
ciently orthodox, though she had introduced one of the 
' death- bed scenes,' which were then in so much request. 
As she anticipated, the story was returned as quite 
362 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

unsuitable, and thereupon she writes to her sister in some 
depression : ' Times are so bad that publishers will not 
speculate in books ; and when I have finished the work 
I am now engaged on, I have nothing else certain to go 
on with.' However, writers so popular with the public 
as the Howitts were not likely to be left long without 
employment. Mary seems to have been the greater 
favourite of the two, and the vogue of her volume of 
collected Poems and Ballads, which appeared in 1847, 
strikes the modern reader with amazement. 

Some idea of the estimation in which she was then 
held is proved by Allan Cunningham's dictum that 
' Mary Howitt has shown herself mistress of every string 
of the minstrel's lyre, save that which sounds of broil 
and bloodshed. There is more of the old ballad 
simplicity in her composition than can be found in 
the strains of any living poet besides."* Another critic 
compared Mrs. Howitt's ballads to those of Lord 
Macaulay, while Mrs. Alaric Watts, in her capacity 
of Annual editor, wrote to assure her old friend and 
contributor that, * In thy simplest poetry there are some- 
times turns so exquisite as to bring the tears to my eyes. 
Thou hast as much poetry in thee as would set up half- 
a-dozen writers.' The one dissentient voice among 
admiring contemporaries is that of Miss Mitford, who 
writes in 1852 : 'I am for my sins so fidgety respecting 
style that I have the bad habit of expecting a book that 
pretends to be written in our language to be English ; 
therefore I cannot read Miss Strickland, or the Howitts, 
or Carlyle, or Emerson, or the serious parts of Dickens.' 
It must be owned that the Howitts are condemned in 
fairly good company. 

The work of both husband and wife suffered from 

363 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

the inevitable defects of self-education, and also from 
the narrowness and seclusion of their early lives. Mary 
possessed more imagination and a lighter touch than her 
husband, but her attempts at adult fiction were ham- 
pered by her ignorance of the world, while her technique, 
both in prose and verse, left something to be desired. 
It is evident that the publishers and editors of the period 
were less critical than Miss Mitford, for, in 1848, we 
find that Mrs. Howitt was invited to write the opening 
volume of Bradshaw's series of Railway novels, while in 
February 1850, came a request from Charles Dickens 
for contributions to Household Words. ' You may have 
seen,' he writes, ' the first dim announcements of the new, 
cheap literary journal I am about to start. Frankly, I 
want to say to you that if you would write for it, you 
would delight me, and I should consider myself very 
fortunate indeed in enlisting your services. ... I hope 
any connection with the enterprise would be satisfactory 
and agreeable to you in all respects, as I should most 
earnestly endeavour to make it. If I wrote a book I 
could say no more than I mean to suggest to you in 
these few lines. All that I leave unsaid, I leave to 
your generous understanding.' 

The Howitts were keenly interested in the gradual 
awakening of the long-dormant, artistic instincts of the 
nation, the first signs of which became faintly visible 
about the end of the forties, ' Down to that time,' 
observes Mary, ' the taste of the English people had 
been for what appealed to the mind rather than to the 
eye, and the general public were almost wholly unedu- 
cated in art. By 1849 the improvement due to the 
exertions of the Prince Consort, the Society of Arts, and 
other powers began to be felt ; while a wonderful impulse 
364 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

to human taste and ingenuity was being given in the 
preparation of exhibits for the World''s Fair/ The 
gentle Quakeress who, in her youth, had modelled 
Wedgwood figures in paper pulp, and clapped her 
clear-starching to the rhythm of Lalla Roohh^ was, in 
middle life, one of the staunchest supporters of the Pre- 
Raphaelite Brethren, and that at a time when the 
President of the Royal Academy had announced his 
intention of hanging no more of their * outrageous pro- 
ductions."' Through their friend, Edward La Trobe 
Bateman, the Howitts had been introduced into the Pre- 
Raphaelite circle, and familiarised with the then new 
and startling idea that artistic principles might be 
carried out in furniture and house-decoration. Less 
than three-quarters of a century before, Mary's father 
had been sternly rebuked by her grandfather for painting 
a series of lines in black and grey above the parlour fire- 
place to represent a cornice. This primitive attempt at 
decoration was regarded as a sinful indulgence of the 
lust of the eye ! With the simple charity that was 
characteristic of them, William and Mary saw only the 
best side of their new friends, the shadows of Bohemian 
life being entirely hidden from them. ' Earnest and 
severe in their principles of art,' observes Mrs. Howitt 
naively, ' the young reformers indulged in much jocundity 
when the day's work was done. They were wont to 
meet at ten, cut jokes, talk slang, smoke, read poetry, 
and discuss art till three a.m.' 

The couple had by this time renounced their member- 
ship of the Society of Friends, but they had not joined 
any other religious sect, though they seem to have been 
attracted by Unitarian doctrines. ' Mere creeds,' wrote 
Mary to her sister, ' matter nothing to me. I could go 

365 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

one Sunday to the Church of England, another to a 
Catholic chapel, a third to the Unitarian, and so on ; 
and in each of them find my heart warmed with 
Christian love to my fellow-creatures, and lifted up with 
gratitude and praise to God.' For many years the house 
in Avenue Road was, we are told, a meeting-place for 
all that was best and brightest in the world of modern 
thought and art. William Howitt was always ready to 
lend an attentive and unbiassed ear to the newest 
theory, or even the newest fad, while Mary possessed 
in the fullest degree the gift of companionableness, 
and her inexhaustible sympathy drew from others an 
instant confidence. Her arduous literary labours never 
impaired her vigorous powers of mind or body, and she 
often wrote till late into the night without appearing 
to suffer in either health or spirits. She is described 
as a careful and energetic housewife ; indeed, her 
husband was accustomed to say that he would challenge 
any woman who never wrote a line, to match his 
own good woman in the management of a large house- 
hold. 

In 1851 came the first tidings of the discovery of 
gold in Australia, and nothing was talked of but this 
new Eldorado and the wonderful inducements held out 
to emigrants. William Howitt, who felt that he 
needed a change from brain-work, suddenly resolved on 
a trip with his two sons to this new world, where he 
would see his youngest brother. Dr. Godfrey Howitt, 
who had settled at Melbourne. He was also anxious 
to ascertain what openings in the country there might 
be for his boys, both of whom had active, outdoor 
tastes, which there seemed little chance of their being 
able to gratify in England. In June, 1852, the three 
366 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

male members of the family, accompanied by La Trobe 
Bateman, sailed for Australia, while Mary and her two 
daughters, the elder of whom had just returned from 
a year in Kaulbach's studio at Munich, moved into 
a cottage called the Hermitage, at Highgate, which 
belonged to Mr. Bateman, and had formerly been 
occupied by Rossetti. Here they lived quietly for 
upwards of two years, working at their literary or 
artistic occupations, and seeing a few intimate friends. 
Mary kept her husband posted up in the events that 
were taking place in England, and we learn from her 
letters what were the chief topics of town talk in the 
early fifties. 

' Now, I must think over what news there is,' she 
writes in April, 1853. 'In the political world, the 
proposed new scheme of Property and Income Tax, 
which would make everybody pay something ; and the 
proposal for paying off a portion of the National Debt 
with Australian gold. In the literary world, the Inter- 
national Copyright, which some expect will be in force in 
three months. In society in general, the strange cir- 
cumstantial rumour of the Queen's death, which, being set 
afloat on Easter Monday, when no business was doing, 
was not the offspring of the money market. Mr. and 
Mrs. Charles Kean, who were here the other day, spoke 
of it, saying truly that for the moment it seemed to 
paralyse the very heart of England. . . . [May 4th.] 
The great talk now is Mrs. Beecher Stowe and spirit- 
rapping, both of which have arrived in England. The 
universality of the latter phenomena renders it a curious 
study. A feeling seems pervading all classes and all 
sects that the world stands on the brink of some great 
spiritual revelation. It meets one in books, in news- 

367 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

papers, on the lips of members of the Church of 
England, Unitarians, and even Freethinkers. Poor 
old Robert Owen, the philanthropist, has been con- 
verted, and made a confession of faith in public. One 
cannot but respect a man who, in his old age, has the 
boldness to declare himself as having been blinded and 
mistaken through life.'' 

In December, 1854, William Howitt returned from 
his travels without any gold in his pockets, but with 
the materials for his H'lstory of Discovery in Australia 
and New Zealand. Thanks to what he used to call his 
four great doctors, Temperance, Exercise, Good Air, 
and Good Hours, he had displayed wonderful powers of 
activity and endurance during his exploration of some 
almost untracked regions of the new world. At sixty 
years of age he had marched twenty miles a day under a 
blazing sun for weeks at a time, worked at digging gold 
for twelve hours a day, waded through rivers, slept under 
trees, baked his own bread, washed his own clothes, and 
now returned in the pink of condition, with his passion 
for wandering only intensified by his three years of an 
adventurous life. The family experiences were diversified 
thenceforward by frequent change of scene, for William 
was always ready and willing to start off at a moment's 
notice to the mountains, the seaside, or the Continent. 
But whether the Howitts were at home or abroad, they 
continued their making of many books, so that it be- 
comes difficult for the biographer to keep pace with their 
literary output. Together or separately they produced 
a History of Scandinavian Literature, The Homes and 
Haunts of the Poets, a Popular History of England, 
which was published in weekly parts, a Year-Book of 
the Count?-y, a Popidar History of the United States, 
368 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

a History of the Supernatural, the Northern Heights of 
London, and an abridged edition of Sir Charles Grandison, 
besides several tales for young people, and contributions 
to magazines and newspapers. 

Even increasing age had no power to narrow their 
point of view, or to blunt their sympathy with every 
movement that seemed to make for the relief of the 
oppressed, the welfare of the nation, or the advancement 
of the human race. Just as in youth they had 
championed the cause of Catholic Emancipation and 
of political Reform, so in later years we find them 
advocating the Repeal of the Corn Laws, taking part 
in the Anti-Slavery agitation, working for improvement 
in the laws that affected women and children, and 
supporting the Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Animals. A more debatable subject — that of spirit- 
ualism — was investigated by them in a friendly but 
impartial spirit, 'In the spring of ISSG,' writes Mrs. 
Howitt, ' we had become acquainted with several most 
ardent and honest spirit mediums. It seemed right 
to my husband and myself to try and understand 
the nature of these phenomena in which our new 
acquaintance so firmly believed. In the month of 
April I was invited to attend a seance at Professor de 
Morgan's, and was much astonished and affected by 
communications purporting to come to me from my 
dear son Claude. With constant prayer for enlighten- 
ment and guidance, we experimented at home. The 
teachings that seemed given us from the spirit-world 
were often akin to those of the gospel ; at other times 
they were more obviously emanations of evil. I felt 
thankful for the assurance thus gained of an invisible 
world, but resolved to neglect none of my common 
2 A 369 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

duties for spiritualism."' Among the Howitts' fellow- 
converts were Robert Chambers, Robert Owen, the 
Carter Halls and the Alaric Watts's ; while Sir David 
Brewster and Lord Brougham were earnest inquirers 
into these forms of psychical phenomena. 

In 1865 William Howitt was granted a pension by 
Government, and a year later the couple moved from High- 
gate to a cottage called the Orchard, near their former 
residence at Esher. Of their four surviving children, 
only Margaret, the youngest, was left at home. Anna, 
already the author of a very interesting book, An Art 
Student at Munich, had, as her mother observes, taken her 
place among the successful artists and writers of her day, 
'when, in the spring of 1856, a severe private censure 
of one of her oil-paintings by a king among critics so 
crushed her sensitive nature, as to make her yield to her 
bias for the supernatural, and withdraw from the arena 
of the fine arts,** In 1857 Anna became the wife of 
Alfred Watts, the son of her parents'" old friends, Alaric 
and Zillah Watts. The two boys, Alfred and Charlton, 
born explorers and naturalists, both settled in Australia. 
Alfred, early in the sixties, had explored the district of 
Lake Torrens, a land of parched deserts, dry-water- 
courses, and soda -springs, whose waters effervesced 
tartaric acid ; and had opened up for the Victorian 
Government the mountainous district of Gippsland, 
with the famous gold-field of the Crooked River. In 
1861 he had been employed to head the relief-party 
that went in search of the discoverer, Robert O'Hara 
Burke, and his companions, and a year later he brought 
back the remains of the ill-fated explorers to Melbourne 
for public burial. Later in life he was successfully 
employed in various Government enterprises, and pub- 
"370 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

lished, in collaboration with a friend, a learned work 
on the aborigines of Australia. 

Charlton Howitt, the younger son, after five years'* 
uncongenial work in a London office, emigrated to 
Australia in 1860. His quality was quickly recognised 
by the Provincial Government, which, in 1862, appointed 
him to command an expedition to examine the rivers in 
the province of Canterbury, with a view to ascertaining 
whether they contained gold. So admirably was the 
work accomplished that, on his return to Christchurch, 
he was intrusted with the task of opening up communi- 
cations between the Canterbury plains and the newly- 
discovered gold and coal district on the west coast. 
' This duty was faithfully performed, under constant 
hardships and discouragement,' relates his mother. ' But 
a few miles of road remained to be cut, when, at the 
end of June, 1863, after personally rescuing other 
pioneers and wanderers from drowning and starvation 
in that watery, inhospitable forest region, Charlton, 
with two of his men, went down in the deep waters of 
Lake Brunner ; a fatal accident which deprived the 
Government of a valued servant, and saddened the hearts 
of all who knew him.' 

After four peaceful years at Esher, the Wanderlust^ 
that gipsy spirit, which not even the burden of years 
could tame, took possession of William and Mary 
once more, and they suddenly decided that they must 
see Italy before they died. In May, 1870, they let 
the Orchard, and, aged seventy-seven and seventy- 
one respectively, set out on their last long flight into 
the world. The summer was spent on the Lake of 
Lucerne, where the old-world couple came across that 
modern of the moderns, Richard Wagner, and his 

371 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

family. By way of the Italian Lakes and Venice they 
travelled, in leisurely fashion, to Rome, where they 
celebrated their golden wedding in April, 1871. The 
Eternal City threw its glamour around these ancient 
pilgrims, who found both life and climate exactly suited 
to the needs of old age. ' I prized in Rome,** writes 
Mrs. Howitt, ' the many kind and sympathetic friends 
that were given to us, the ease of social existence, the 
poetry, the classic grace, the peculiar and deep pathos 
diffused around ; above all, the stirring and affecting 
historic memories. . . . From the period of arrival in 
Rome, I may truly say that the promise in Scripture, 
" At evening time there shall be light," was, in our case, 
fulfilled.' 

The simple, homely life of the aged couple continued 
unbroken amid their new surroundings. William in- 
terested himself in the planting of Eucalyptus in the 
Campagna, as a preventive against malaria, and had 
seeds of different varieties sent over from Australia, 
which he presented to the Trappist monks of the Tre 
Fontani. He helped to establish a society for the 
prevention of cruelty to animals, and struck up a 
friendship with the gardeners and custodians of the 
Pincio, to whom he gave expert advice on the subject 
of the creatures under their charge. The summer 
months were always spent in the Tyrol, where the 
Howitts had permanent quarters in an old mansion 
near Bruneck, called Mayr-am-Hof. Here William 
was able to indulge in his favourite occupation of 
gardening. He dug indefatigably in a field allotment 
with his English spade, a unique instrument in that 
land of clumsy husbandry, and was amazed at the growth 
of the New Zealand spinach, the widespread rhubarb, 
372 



WILLIAM AND MARY HO WITT 

the exuberant tomatoes, and towering spikes of Indian 
corn. Thanks to the four great doctors before men- 
tioned, he remained hale and hearty up to December, 
1878, in which month he celebrated his eighty-seventh 
birthday. A few weeks later he was attacked by 
bronchitis, which, owing to an unsuspected weakness 
of the heart, he was unable to throw off. He died 
in his house on the Via Sistina, close to his favourite 
Pincio, on March 3, 1879. 

Mrs. Howitt now finally gave up the idea of return- 
ing to end her days in England. Her husband and 
companion of more than fifty years was buried in the 
Protestant Cemetery at Rome, and when her time came, 
she desired to be laid by his side. The grant of a small 
pension added to the comfort of her last years, and was 
a source of much innocent pride and gratification, for, 
as she tells her daughter Anna, ' It was so readily given, 
so kindly, so graciously, for my literary merits, by Lord 
Beaconsfield, without the solicitation or interference of 
any friend or well-wisher.'' In May, 1880, she writes to 
a friend from Meran about 'a project, which seems to 
have grown up in a wonderful way by itself, or as if in- 
visible hands had been arranging it ; that we should 
have a little home of our own im hciligen Land Tirol. 
This really is a very great mercy, seeing that the Tyrol 
is so beautiful, the climate so beneficial to health, and 
the people, taken as a whole, so very honest and devout. 
Our little nest of love, which we shall call " Marienruhe," 
will be perched on a hill with beautiful views, surrounded 
by a small garden.' On September 29, 1881, Mrs. 
Howitt and her daughter, Margaret, slept, for the first 
time, in their romantically-situated new home near 
Meran. 

373 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

At Marienrulie, the greater portion of the last seven 
years of Mary Howitt's life was spent in peace and 
contentment. Here she amused herself with writing 
her ' Reminiscences "* for Good Words, which were after- 
wards incorporated in her Autobiography. Age had no 
power to blunt her interest in the events of the day, 
political or literary, and at eighty-seven we find her 
reading with keen enjoyment Froude's Oceana and 
Besant's All Sorts and Conditums of Men, books that 
dealt with questions which she and her husband had 
had at heart for the best part of a lifetime, and for 
which they had worked with untiring zeal. Of the first 
she writes to a friend : ' We much approve of his 
(Froude''s) very strong desire that our colonies should, 
like good, faithful, well-ti'ained children, be staunch in 
love and service to old Mother England. How deeply 
we feel on this subject I cannot tell you ; and I hope 
and trust that you join strongly in this truly English 
sentiment.' Of the second she writes to Mrs. Leigh 
Smith : ' I am more interested than I can tell you in 
All Soiis and Conditions of Men. It affects me like the 
perfected fruit of some glorious tree which my dear 
husband and I had a dim dream of planting more than 
thirty years ago, and which we did, in our ignorance 
and incapacity, attempt to plant in soil not properly 
prepared, and far too early in the season. I cannot 
tell you how it has recalled the hopes and dreams 
of a time which, by the overruling Providence of God, 
was so disastrous to us. It is a beautiful essay on the 
dignity of labour.'' 

The last few years of Mary Howitfs life were sad- 
dened by the deaths of her beloved sister, Anna, and 
her elder daughter, Mrs. AVatts, but such blows are 
374 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

softened for aged persons by the consciousness that their 
own race is nearly run. Mary had, moreover, one great 
spiritual consolation in her conversion, at the age of 
eighty-three, to the doctrines of Roman Catholicism 
In spite of her oft-repeated protestations against the 
likelihood of her ' going over,'' in spite of her declara- 
tion, openly expressed as late as 1871, that she firmly 
believed in the anti-Christianity of the Papacy, and that 
she and her husband were watching with interest the 
progress of events which, they trusted, would bring about 
its downfall, Mrs. Howitt was baptized into the Roman 
Church in May, 1882. Her new faith was a source of 
intense happiness to the naturally religious woman, who 
had found no refuge in any sectarian fold since her renun- 
ciation of her childish creed. In 1888, the year of the 
Papal Jubilee, though her strength was already failing, 
she was well enough to join the deputation of English 
pilgrims, who, on January 10, were presented to the 
Pope by the Duke of Norfolk. In describing the scene, 
the last public ceremony in which she took part, she 
writes : ' A serene happiness, almost joy, filled my whole 
being as I found myself on my knees before the Vicar 
of Christ. My wish was to kiss his foot, but it was 
withdrawn, and his hand given to me. You may think 
with what fervour I kissed the ring. In the meantime 
he had been told my age and my late conversion. His 
hands were laid on my shoulders, and, again and again, 
his right hand in blessing on my head, whilst he spoke 
to me of Paradise."* 

Having thus achieved her heart's desire, it seemed as 
if the last tie which bound the aged convert to earth 
was broken. A few days later she was attacked by 
bronchitis, and, after a short illness, passed away in 

375 



WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT 

her sleep on January 30, 1888, having nearly com- 
pleted her eighty-ninth year. To the last, we are told, 
Mary Howitfs sympathy was as warm, her intelligence 
as keen as in the full vigour of life, while her rare 
physical strength and pliant temper preserved her in 
unabated enjoyment of existence to the verge of ninety. 
Although many of her books were out • of print at the 
time of her death, it was said that if every copy had 
been destroyed, most of her ballads and minor poems 
could have been collected from the memories of her 
admirers, who had them — very literally — by heart. 

William and Mary Howitt, it may be observed in con- 
clusion, though not leaders, were brave soldiers in the 
army of v.orkers for humanity, and if now they seem 
likely to share the common lot of the rank and file — 
oblivion — it must be remembered that they were among 
those favoured of the gods who are crowned with grati- 
tude, love, and admiration by their contemporaries. To 
them, asleep in their Roman grave, the neglect of pos- 
terity brings no more pain than the homage of modern 
critics brings triumph to the slighted poet who shares 
their last resting-place. 



Printed by T. and A. Constable, (late) Printers to Her Majesty 
at the Edinburgh University Press 



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